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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267002">Baby, You Don't Know How Bad It's Gonna Get</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0nkarnage/pseuds/d0nkarnage'>d0nkarnage</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>just see how virtue betrays you [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Sticky Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, playing fast and loose with canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:00:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>57,417</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0nkarnage/pseuds/d0nkarnage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The two of them stayed like that, curled together on the floor of Drift’s hab-suite, the smell of incense and the sound of crystal chimes clinking in the air. An arm’s length separated them, yet Starscream’s servo kept them connected.</p><p>“It’s like we’re not even the same mecha,” Starscream murmured, as in awe of the passage of time as he was in disdain of it.</p><p>“We aren’t,” Drift agreed. “Everything about us that could be altered, was.”</p><p>[An AU in which instead of being sent to prison, Starscream follows in Megatron's footsteps and seeks exile aboard the Lost Light. To everyone's surprise, it's not Megatron he's there for.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet, Drift | Deadlock/Starscream, Past Megatron/Starscream</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>just see how virtue betrays you [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2276885</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>151</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Arrival</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm in rarepair hell, and also projecting so hard onto Starscream I could be used to teach basic grammar to a class of 4th graders in the late 90's/early 2000's.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There had been resistance, at first. That was natural. Normal, even. It was to be expected, which went perfectly hand-in-hand with how <em> unexpected </em> everything else had been.</p><p>Megatron, asking to serve his sentence on the Lost Light? Sure, fine, whatever, that had come way out of left field but it made sense, <em> kind of</em>, in a weird way. Sort of. It was pretty obvious to everyone involved that he was only going along with the whole “quest” thing to delay facing the real consequences of their millennia long war, but as <em> Megatron </em> as that was of him, everyone took it remarkably in stride after the first couple attempts on the ex-warlord’s life, and after that it became just another <em> thing </em> about the journey that was accepted and eventually embraced.</p><p>And then Starscream, very recently-ousted ex-Ruler of Cybertron, backlit by every bridge he’d ever burned, forced into exile and completely out of options, had asked to join.</p><p>Once all the arguing and screaming died down, the discussion was surprisingly civil.</p><p>Oh of course they talked around the same couple of points for a few good hours, going in circles about the whole <em> he’s Megatron’s former second-in-command </em> and him having been <em> complicit in mass genocide </em> and <em> he’s just as bad as HIM </em> and oh, Drift’s personal favorite, <em> why not just kidnap Soundwave while we’re at it, rename the ship to the Nemesis?!  </em></p><p>But eventually things were calm enough to point out some other obvious truths, ones that painted Starscream in a much more positive light--or at least as positive a light as one could paint him. Things like <em> if we can accept the guy that ACTUALLY started it all, why not his former punching bag </em> and <em> yeah he just got fired from leading our entire species but he also didn’t plunge us into millions of years of war, so, </em> <b> <em>you know</em> </b> and finally, at the tail-end of the discussion from Drift himself:</p><p>“There isn’t anything he did that I didn’t.”</p><p>That had turned a couple heads, not the least of which was Starscream’s himself. Magnus and Rodimus looked at him with their crossed arms and their misunderstanding optics, in that way they always did when they thought he was about to start getting <em> spiritual</em>, and Megatron was pointedly avoiding looking at any of them by then, EM withdrawn so tight it might as well not exist, as far as he could physically stand from Starscream.</p><p>That was the other mechanimal in the room. <em> Them.  </em></p><p>Megatron and Starscream and all the shared history between them, so viscerally real it might as well have been counted as another person; just as damning as any other accusation, for the both of them.</p><p>
  <em> Starscream’s treachery. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Megatron’s violence.  </em>
</p><p>The subject of what it could mean to have the two former leaders of the Decepticon cause back on the same ship together when their <em> relationship </em> was so infamous was left mercifully unaddressed, or at least relegated to private comms where Drift didn’t hear a word of it.</p><p>Eventually Starscream was left in the former assassin’s care while Rodimus and Magnus took Megatron back to the Captain’s quarters. Drift would get the details of that discussion later--one which dragged on for another hour and a half--while on his side of the matter Starscream said nothing to him at all, and they passed their time waiting on the bridge in tense silence.</p><p>It was a relief, in a way. Drift wouldn't have known what to say if Starscream <em>did</em> try to talk to him.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>A decision <em> was </em> finally reached, although it took three more hours of arguing, making cases, listing crimes, and generally dancing around the real heart of the matter that was <em> also </em> going unaddressed, though Drift had no intention of giving voice to <em> that </em> minefield.</p><p>
  <em> No one wants Starscream here.  </em>
</p><p>Drift knew it, all of Command knew it, and looking into the Seeker’s optics Drift could see that yes, Starscream knew it too. Had known before he’d even asked. How could he not? He was <em> Starscream. </em>He knew he wasn’t going to be welcomed the second he set pedes onboard, and he knew it would put him not only at risk of the wrath of 200 some-odd assorted Autobots, but also of constant exposure to Megatron.</p><p>Under any other circumstance, Drift would have gambled on that being the entire reason for Starscream deciding to be there--a chance to get to his old leader, to make one last mad dash attempt at finishing what he’d started now that he had nothing left to lose, and/or die trying. It made the most sense realistically, and honestly, Drift couldn’t fathom any other reason Starscream would want to be near the mech if it wasn’t to kill him, so that had to be it.</p><p>Except that, from the moment Starscream was in Megatron’s presence, the Seeker hadn’t so much as looked at him once. </p><p>Hadn’t even glanced in his direction. As far as Starscream was concerned Megatron didn’t exist, might as well have been invisible for all the attention he was paid by his ex-SIC.</p><p>And maybe that was a ploy, too. Maybe <em> all </em> of it was a ploy, an act. It was hardly unbelievable; Starscream was a mech composed of duplicity, and Drift didn’t think there was a single being in all the galaxy, not even Primus himself, who knew all of what went on in the Seeker’s head. He had more schemes and motivations than most mecha had wires in their frame--it was a fact of life.</p><p>Suns shone, ships flew, and Starscream was a self-serving, lying, backstabbing coward.</p><p>Drift didn't dare contemplate what other reasons Starscream would be there for.</p><p>In the end, it was put to a vote. Drift was included only because despite no longer being in command, the ship <em> was </em> technically his, and Rodimus insisted he get a say because of it.</p><p>“That could lead to a tie,” Drift had pointed out, all patient smiles and fond exasperation. “Three is a fairer number.”</p><p>“Hey, you don’t know!” Rodimus retorted, hands on hips. “The only predictable answer is gonna be Megs’, just watch.” That earned him a withered glare, which he gracefully pretended not to notice.</p><p>“I vote against,” Ultra Magnus said. “The risks of upset and upheaval are too great. There are too many variables to say with any measure of certainty how the rest of the crew will react.”</p><p>“Well I vote for,” Rodimus countered, talking over the end of Magnus’ sentence and earning himself another <em> look. </em> “The war is over, and anyone not too far gone deserves a chance to make up for their mistakes in one way or another. Obviously Screamer is trying. We’re Autobots, aren’t we? If we start picking and choosing who gets to earn a new life based on popularity contests, it makes <em> us </em> look like the bad guys.”</p><p>They all looked to Megatron--except Starscream, who had planted himself in front of the viewing port after the others returned from debating and hadn’t shown any sign of movement since. </p><p>“So?” Rodimus asked. “Is this the part where I get outvoted?”</p><p>“I also vote for,” Megatron replied. Across the room, Drift saw Starscream go still.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s so typical of y--wait, what?”</p><p>“I said,” Megatron repeated calmly, “I vote for.”</p><p>“You… You do?” Rodimus asked, utterly at a loss. Drift recognized the disappointment quickly deflating the speedster’s bravado; he probably had a whole speech planned. “Wait, so--you <em> do</em>?”</p><p>“Yes, Rodimus,” the ex-warlord huffed, irritation bleeding into his tightly drawn field. </p><p>“Okay, but why?” </p><p>“If you would like a formal explanation of my reasoning, I can write one up for you later. We’ve wasted enough time bickering as it is, and in case you’ve forgotten there’s a ship needing to be run currently missing its entire command staff.”</p><p>Rodimus’ vents stalled and his plating flared, and he made it all of two steps toward his co-captain before Ultra Magnus made the executive decision to step in and put a stop to whatever was about to unfold before it did any kind of folding.</p><p>“A decision has been reached, then. Starscream will be allowed passage on the Lost Light until such a time he chooses to leave of his own volition, or is forcibly removed due to any manner of behavior deemed a danger to the greater populace.” The big blue mech took a moment to let everyone absorb his decree, then continued. “As with all new recruits to the ship he will be granted a two week probationary period to adjust and be observed, and then if no problems arise he will be assigned a job in the duty roster. Understood?”</p><p>The last word he said directly to Starscream. The Seeker hadn’t left off staring out into space until Ultra Magnus addressed him, and only then did he turn. </p><p>“Understood.”</p><p>“Then the matter is settled. Welcome aboard.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Rodimus wanted to start giving Starscream the grand tour right then and there, his desire to show off the ship almost <em> palpable,</em> but then Megatron had frozen him in place with a reminder that his shift on the bridge wasn’t over. The speedster conceded to his responsibilities with a long-suffering groan and reluctantly trudged after his co-captain back to their respective places on the bridge, calling over his shoulder for Magnus to give him the tour instead.</p><p>Magnus, visibility eager to exit the situation, sagged with relief when Drift quietly volunteered himself in his place. He immediately looked guilty for so readily shrugging the duty off onto someone that wasn’t even a part of the chain of command anymore, so Drift placated him with the waiting pile of reports Drift knew he’d had to abandon to deal with the Starscream conundrum. One gentle nudge in the direction of his office and Magnus was gone without so much as a backwards glance, radiating a far more enthusiastic energy at the prospect of a job to do than his boss had.</p><p>Out in the hall, Drift and Starscream were alone again.</p><p>A moment or so passed, slightly longer than Drift liked, where he found he had no idea what to say. Something about jumping right into the tour routine of <em> here’s the bar, here’s the engines, here’s where we keep the oil </em> seemed too casual, too… normal. This wasn’t just <em> any </em> mech standing in front of him.</p><p>After all, Starscream and Megatron’s history wasn’t the only one left unaddressed.</p><p>Just when Drift was ready to take the plunge and start whatever all <em> this </em> was going to be, Starscream beat him to the punch.</p><p>“So, <em> Drift</em>,” he said, canting his hip to one side, looking his former comrade up and down. “Drift. Dr<em>iiiiift</em>.” Starscream worked the designation over his glossa like he was tasting it before chewing it up to spit out. “Drift.”</p><p>“Not a fan?”</p><p>“Well, you know me,” he smirked. “I always did favor a long name. Sounds so much grander.”</p><p>“Haven’t you heard?” Drift asked. “I’m not so grand these days.”</p><p>“Ah yes,” the Seeker sighed in faux-melancholy. “Exile, banishment, re-entry and subsequent demotion. How tragic to see the once great Deadlock laid so low.”</p><p>“That’s the afterburner calling the tailpipe black,” Drift said with a grin just wide enough to show a hint of fang. “Didn’t you used to run a planet? <em> Past</em>-tense?”</p><p>Their optics met. Starscream’s clawed fingers twitched on his hip. Drift’s servo palmed the grip of his sword. A lifetime passed in a second, neither of them daring even to blink, and the tension grew and grew, something between them stretching thinner and thinner and <em> thinner </em> until it had no choice but to <em> snap </em> and--</p><p>--they burst out laughing.</p><p>The distance separating them evaporated and Drift met Starscream in the middle, the two of them clapping a hand on the other’s shoulder with matching resounding <em> clangs.  </em></p><p>“You two-faced cybersnake,” Drift said warmly.</p><p>“Dirty circuit-sucker,” Starscream replied, optics bright.</p><p>Drift gave the other mech’s shoulder one more definitive squeeze before pulling away, gesturing with the sweep of an arm down the corridor.</p><p>“Come on, let me show you to the hab level. I think there’s still a few left with windows.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>---</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Drift walked Starscream through every place in the Lost Light worth seeing, and when all that was worth seeing had been seen, Drift took Starscream to his hab, and sprawled out on their backs in the center of the floor they told each other almost everything.</p><p>Drift heard about Starscream being deemed “The Chosen One”, getting crowned, his “misadventures” with Windblade and Rattrap and Wheeljack, his honest bids to unite the sprawling colonies of wayward cybernetic sentients, and his many, many crimes.</p><p>Starscream heard about Overlord, about the Sparkeater, about Delphi and the DJD and what had befallen the Necrobot. The Seeker had trilled and snickered through Drift’s retelling, only losing his amusement when Ravage’s death at the hand of Tarn was mentioned.</p><p>“Ugh, <em> please </em> tell me Megatron tore that overhyped piece of shareware apart for that.”</p><p>“As a matter of fact, he did, with anti-matter from his sub-space no less. Broke him down to nothing--and would have done the same to himself, if Rodimus hadn’t stepped in at the last possible moment to rescue him.”</p><p>Starscream’s face lit up with a subtle amusement. “How very noble of our little discount Prime. Shame he didn’t wait a few seconds longer.”</p><p>Drift turned his helm to level a serious expression at the Seeker. “He <em> is </em> noble. He voted to let you come aboard.”</p><p>Starscream’s optics narrowed a fraction, though his mouth remained turned up with delight. “You like him,” he said. It wasn’t a question.</p><p>“I do,” Drift allowed. Liars couldn’t be lied to and he knew no better liar than Starscream, so there wasn’t any point in trying to deceive him.</p><p>“Will I get an invitation to the ceremony?” the Seeker asked, his smirk widening when he got the reaction he was looking for in the form of Drift’s plating clamping down.</p><p>“That’s not--he's not--!!”</p><p>Starscream’s smile was like a collapsing star, it was so bright, so destructive.</p><p>“Ha. Made you squirm.” The Seeker rolled over onto his side, helm propped up in his open palm. Drift rolled to meet him, mirroring his pose, and let his plating relax a fraction. They laid that way for a few kilks, taking the other in, absorbing all the physical changes to make up for the ones they couldn’t see.</p><p>“You reformatted,” Drift said. “I like it.”</p><p>“So did you.” Starscream’s optics trailed up and down and over. “I like it more than your new name.”</p><p>“Old name, technically,” Drift reminded him. “I was Drift before I was Deadlock, remember?”</p><p>Starscream made an affirmative noise, and one servo twitched abortively, halfway to touching the other ex-Con before thinking better of it. “I remember. I was there, when Megatron christened you with that clunky designation.”</p><p>“Clunky? What happened to ‘grand’?”</p><p>“I said long names were <em> grander, </em>I never said your name was.” A pause. “I’d like it better if Megatron hadn’t picked it.”</p><p>“He didn’t pick Drift,” the speedster said. </p><p>Another affirmative noise, and that time Starscream did touch--one claw-tip, just the finest sharpest edge, coming to rest on the swell of Drift’s hip component. It was so light Drift’s sensornet didn’t actually even register it; his spark, however, licked a hot corona against the inner panel of his chamber. Never was Drift more thankful his chassis was opaque than he was then.</p><p>Their optics met again, red into cyan.</p><p>A couple million years ago, their insults and hushed trash-talking of comrades and enemies alike would have turned into increasingly bold caresses, and then slid uncontrollably into processor-melting frags that left them both overstimulated and overwhelmed. They would have shared a rinse in Deadlock’s private washrack, as well as some disturbingly <em> un-Decepticon-like </em> words stealthily muffled by the crashing spray of solvent, and in the morning they would have parted ways and acted for all the world like bitter rivals, hated enemies, and bloodthirsty weapons of war. They would have been at each other's throats in public, snarling and mocking, always seconds away from tearing the other limb from limb while portraying the most visceral displays of vitriolic <em> hate </em> they could muster, nothing but acid and venom and poison, until inevitably Soundwave or Turmoil pulled them apart and got them back on task.</p><p>Things had changed. <em> They </em> had changed.</p><p>No bold caresses anymore, but no false animosity, either. The two of them stayed like that, curled together on the floor of Drift’s hab-suite, the smell of incense and the sound of crystal chimes clinking in the air. An arm’s length separated them, yet Starscream’s servo kept them connected.</p><p>“It’s like we’re not even the same mecha,” Starscream murmured, as in awe of the passage of time as he was in disdain of it.</p><p>“We aren’t,” Drift agreed. “Everything about us that could be altered, was.”</p><p>
  <em> We are not those people any longer. </em>
</p><p>Starscream held eye contact, staring hard into Drift. Slowly the Seeker laid his servo flat, until the entire breadth of his palm and digits eclipsed his former comrade’s hip. The reformat had made Starscream’s hands smaller--it had made all of him smaller, really--but he was as hot to the touch as he had ever been. Helplessly, Drift shuttered his optics off to focus on that small point of heat, the way the warmth pooled in his armor only where Starscream touched him, and how familiar that warmth was even with all new frames containing it, <em> savoring </em> it.</p><p>“Everything?” Starscream asked.</p><p>For all that he had now, all the peace and happiness he never dared dream would be his, a part of Drift--the part with an itchy trigger finger, the part that refused to file down his teeth, the part that remembered how Syk tasted--wanted nothing more in that moment than to say <em> no, not everything </em> and meet the expectations Starscream had clearly come to him with.</p><p>Instead his optics shuttered back on with an audible click and he blurted, “I have a conjunx.”</p><p>And just like that, the warmth was gone.</p><p>“Oh,” Starscream said, pulling his hand back like he’d been bitten. “So, wait, earlier--when I said--don’t tell me it’s the <em> Prime, </em> I was slagging <em> kidding, </em> is he actually--is this a <em> joke</em>--”</p><p>“No!” Drift balked, sitting up to try to prepare for what he knew was coming next. “No, Primus no, Rodimus is my amica, he’s not--we’re only friends, <em> just </em> friends.”</p><p>Starscream pushed himself up as well. His optics were narrow slits again, but this time there wasn’t even a hint of his earlier smile. The EM he’d previously left draped around them retracted so fast it gave Drift whiplash.</p><p>“What, lose your taste for sleek, flashy machines?” The Seeker seethed, gesturing to himself. “Or does he just <em> remind </em> you of someone?” Starscream’s new frame was indeed a sleek, flashy machine, just like Rodimus, and aesthetically it <em> was </em> exactly the kind of build Drift got weak in the struts for--or at least, he used to.</p><p>“It’s not about that. It’s never been about that.”</p><p>Starscream was on all fours then, an inch from Drift’s faceplate. </p><p>“Then praytell, what exactly <em> is </em> it about?” he demanded, wings hiked high and taut in agitation.</p><p>Drift sighed. “It’s about everything <em> else, </em> Starscream.”</p><p>The honesty was a stumbling block for the Seeker; the truth of Drift’s confession, shamelessly bare in his field, destabilized Starscream. </p><p>“Everything else?” he hissed, lip plates pulled up in a bewildered snarl. His new frame had given him back the fangs he’d foregone as Cybertron’s ruler--part of his Decepticon image he’d judicially sacrificed to appeal to the Autobot and neutral masses--and they glinted in the low light of Drift’s meditative lanterns, small and razor sharp. “Is that to mean everything I’m not?”</p><p>“That’s not it, and you know it,” Drift huffed, He wanted to push Starscream out of his space, but the flier was unpredictable, and any altercation that left marks would guarantee Starscream lost his place on the ship. Drift didn’t want it to come to that.</p><p>What’s more, he didn’t want them to come to blows. Not them. Not now. This was the first time they’d been able to see the other and speak, actually <em> speak, </em> since Drift had defected. They were still close enough for their vents to fog on each other’s optics, close enough to kiss; two million years ago Drift would have done just that, kissed the Seeker and used it to distract him into calming that fiery spark, until whatever they were fighting about was long forgotten. </p><p>It wasn’t his right to do so anymore. Drift was ashamed of how glad he was for the excuse to stop him.</p><p>“No, I <em> don’t </em> know,” Starscream glared. “If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you.” He finally retreated, sitting back to kneel. Clawed servos dug deep lines into the floor when Starscream dragged them sluggishly into clenched fists at his sides, and Drift couldn’t hide his wince.</p><p>“It wasn’t something I intended to happen,” he started to explain, only to be cut off by a scathing laugh.</p><p>“Is that how it always is for you?” Starscream asked, optics darkening. “Stumbling helmfirst into trysts and relationships, taking them in stride? Taking what you can <em> get</em>?” The last word came out with enough bite to make Starscream’s teeth click. “Was I like that, for you? Something you didn’t intend to happen?”</p><p>“I didn’t go chasing after you, if that’s what you mean,” Drift said, upset he was being forced on the defensive. “It was war, we could have died at any moment, I didn’t <em> intend </em> to get involved with <em> anyone. </em>”</p><p>“Yes, well, hindsight and all that.” Starscream was closing the distance between them again, down on all fours once more. He prowled until he’d closed the gap and then some, and Drift let him because he wasn’t afraid of Starscream, and never had been. Drift let him nearly climb astride him, let Starscream lay servos on him again to manhandle his collar plating as far as it could be pushed aside from his sensitive neck cables and dig his claws in, looking for something he wasn’t going to find.</p><p>“It’s not there,” Drift warned him too late. The Seeker didn’t stop, he kept tugging and pushing, going so far as to shove Drift’s head as far to the side as it could go, and <em> still </em> he let Starscream do it, because that much the former Decepticon was owed, if nothing else.</p><p>“You said you were reformatted, not <em> replaced. </em>” </p><p>“The Circle of Light was… thorough. They upgraded a lot of me.”</p><p>“Upgraded?!”</p><p>Starscream made a sound that was dangerously close to a <em> keen, </em> and he shoved Drift away. The speedster didn’t go far--he was bigger than Starscream now and not so easily thrown--but he was knocked down onto his elbows. It was the perfect view to look directly into Starscream’s burning optics as he grabbed hold of his own plating and yanked it away from his body, exposing his neck and all the protoform hidden beneath it.</p><p>Drift made to sit up. “Stop, you’re going to rip it off!”</p><p>Starscream’s gaze hardened, freezing Drift in place. The plating didn’t tear free, but Drift could see the wires beneath it straining, and within them he saw something else--the thing Starscream had kept, and Drift had lost.</p><p>Silver scarring, deep in the living metal flesh of the Seeker’s body. The pattern was unmistakable, even from a distance. </p><p>Bite marks. Drift’s bite marks. </p><p><em> Deadlock’s </em> bite marks. </p><p>Decepticon claiming culture at its finest.</p><p>“Seven reformats,” Starscream whispered, voice teetering the brink between pained and furious. “Seven times I went under welding torches and laser scalpels, and Primus <em> knows </em> how many full-body repairs, after being left to Megatron’s <em> tender mercies. </em> I’ve been shot apart, torn apart, blown apart, beaten into scrap metal and burned alive, and <em> still </em> I kept it.” His servo loosened, the plating settling roughly back into place to hide Drift’s claim from sight again.</p><p>“Starscream…”</p><p>The Seeker shook his head, optics going completely dark.</p><p>“I suspected when you turned traitor on us the claim was void. Really, what other conclusion was there? Stupid of me. Stupider, to think you had any intention of holding up your end of the bargain.”</p><p>Starscream shook his head again and cycled his optics back on, standing to go. Drift got on his pedes as well, fighting the urge to grab his ex-comrade and drag him back, make him sit and <em> listen </em> instead of accuse.</p><p>“That’s hypocritical, even for you,” Drift said instead. “I don’t recall you <em> upholding </em> anything, either.”</p><p>Starscream had made it to the door by then. His hand hovered over the command panel, poised as elegantly as the rest of him; it twitched as abortively as before at Drift’s words, then curled delicately into a fist.</p><p>“No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’d have no idea.” When Starscream laughed there was absolutely no humor in it. The sound made Drift’s tank roll.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>Starscream turned to face him, his expression so serene in its apathy it was almost believable. It was an intensely unsettling picture.</p><p>“When you defected. Did you think you were <em> special? </em> Did you think you were some kind of <em> exception? </em> They were going to put your name on The List. Tarn was practically <em> giggling, </em> he was so happy. You were gone, what, an orn? Two? That’s how long he waited.”</p><p>Drift didn’t understand. “I didn’t think I was--I knew they put me on The List. The ‘me’ on the other Lost Light is dead because of it. I harbored no delusions about what I was inviting upon myself when I left the Decepticons.”</p><p>Starscream shook his head for the third and final time.</p><p>“That was after the war. As soon as they threw me in prison I couldn’t buy you any more time, I didn't have the status. I couldn't contact Megatron, and he couldn't contact Tarn.”</p><p>Drift’s tank did another little roll. “What?”</p><p>“You can’t be serious,” Starscream sighed, apathy melting into a despondent sort of exasperation. “Don’t you <em> get </em> it? The List! Your designation! From the moment you turned tail to the day the war was over I was bending over backwards to keep your name off of it! Who do you think convinced Megatron you weren’t a lost cause? Got him to order Tarn to stand down? Who else in that entire <em> faction </em> would do the things I did to keep your spark beating? No one, that’s who!" Static crept in as Starscream's voice reached a near hysterical pitch. "Do you have any <em>idea</em> what it took?! What Megatron <em>did to me?!"</em></p><p>By the time he’d finished, Starscream was venting hard and fast, his back to Drift again. His wings were high and tight, trembling with the force it took to keep them still, but it didn’t matter. Starscream’s confession had already given him away.</p><p>Tentatively, Drift reached out a hand. “Star,” he called softly.</p><p>“<b>Don’t</b>.”</p><p>Starscream was pulled taut, every inch of him coiled to strike at the slightest provocation. </p><p>“You don’t get to call me that anymore.” </p><p>A shaky fist unfurled to slap a palm against the hab-suite's controls, opening the door with a pneumatic hiss. Starscream paused in the opening for just a nanoklik. “Congratulations on your nuptials. Give your conjunx my <em> regards.</em>”</p><p>And then he was gone.</p><p>Drift let out a ventilation he hadn’t known he was holding, and ran a hand over his faceplate.</p><p>He needed to call Ratchet.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Apology</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It has never mattered what YOU want.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Starscream’s two week probationary period came and went, and not a single soul saw wing or pede of the Seeker in all that time.</p><p>After their caustic parting Drift had made a point of walking the hall in front of Starscream’s hab-suite, hoping to catch him leaving or entering so they could talk; he paced that corridor every few joors for nearly the entirety of those two weeks, until it became painfully obvious that method wasn’t going to work (and that Ratchet would kill him if he didn't stop).</p><p>No one had Starscream’s comm-link frequency--he’d changed and encrypted it easily a hundred times during the war <em> and </em> after, and between all the arguing and the rush to get him off the bridge no one in the chain-of-command had thought to ask him for it. Even Drift had been too distracted to request it or give his own before things took such a drastic turn that first night, and with those avenues closed to him he had no choice but to try confronting Starscream directly.</p><p>This kind of wound couldn’t be left to fester. It would kill them both.</p><p>On the last day of the Seeker’s probation Drift strode right up to his hab, drew a calming breath through his vents, and rapped his knuckles against the door three times.</p><p>“Starscream, it’s Drift. May I come in?”</p><p>Silence greeted his request.</p><p><em> No big surprise there. </em> Drift didn’t actually miss his position as TIC all that much, but times like this the authority to manually override door locks would have been useful. <em> Then again, barging in without his permission wouldn’t improve his opinion of me, would it?  </em></p><p>Drift knocked again, a little louder.</p><p>“Starscream, please. No one has seen you leave your room since you arrived.” </p><p>No one had seen him leave, which meant no one had seen him refuel, and two weeks was a long time for <em>anyone</em> to go without energon. For a slender flight frame it was inconceivable. Unless he’d taken some in with him after storming out of Drift’s suite, which wasn’t out of the question--Starscream was nothing if not pragmatic <em>and</em> a serial schemer--then he’d eaten nothing since coming aboard.</p><p>Drift remembered far too well what that kind of hunger felt like. He knocked again, <em> harder.  </em></p><p>“I know you’re in there. Starscream, would you <em> please </em> open the door?” Drift set his jaw. "I'm off shift, I can do this all day."</p><p>Finally, a sound came from inside. Drift’s audials picked up the subtle clicking of thruster heels on steel getting closer, and he stepped away from the door just in case the Seeker came out swinging. Drift was prepared for the worst, and he was prepared to bear the brunt of Starscream’s justifiable rage too, if it meant the flier would come out of his room and <em> talk </em> to him.</p><p>The door slid open, and there stood Starscream in a moderate percentage of his glory, looking tired and annoyed. </p><p>“What?” he spat, as hospitable as a rust infection. </p><p>“Starscream, we need to talk.”</p><p>“<em>We </em> don’t need to do anything,” the Seeker replied, and his tone was impressively acidic, even through his obvious fatigue. "That's the funny thing about <em> half </em> a bond. It doesn't go both ways." </p><p>The unspoken implication couldn’t be any clearer: anything that was going to be done to rectify this had to be done by Drift. The duty of care was firmly <em> his </em> responsibility because only <em> his </em> claim remained--any obligation Starscream was beholden to had vanished along with the scar he’d left between Deadlock’s neck and shoulder.</p><p>“Alright, then <em> I </em>need to talk. If I do, will you listen?” Drift very badly wanted to fiddle with the grips of the swords sheathed at his sides and just barely held himself in check. Starscream would likely take it as a threat, and that was the last implication he wanted his request to have.</p><p>“If your prattle puts me back into recharge, fine.” Starscream yawned as he stepped aside to let Drift slip by. It was a decidedly human behavior--Drift wondered where he could possibly have picked it up, considering the classic Decepticon hatred for organics.</p><p>“You were resting?”</p><p>“Mm. I don’t know if <em> you’ve </em> ever been in charge of an entire society before, but it tends to <em> take </em> more than it gives. Magnus’ little observation period has been a lovely excuse to lock myself in stasis.”</p><p>Starscream didn’t waste any time in going back to his berth, striding up and laying himself across it on his front, wings fluttering low to lie across his back. His arms pillowed his chin and his pedes were crossed at the ankle strut; it painted him the picture of easy, simple contentment. He looked almost vulnerable.</p><p>It was a convincing act. But not <em> that </em> convincing. Drift knew what Starscream looked like vulnerable, and this wasn’t it.</p><p>“Is that what you’ve been doing the past two weeks? Recharging?” Drift wandered the hab-suite, surprised at how little had changed. It looked as if Starscream had brought next to nothing with him from Cybertron, though Drift supposed that was by design. He doubted the authorities had given the Seeker much time to pack when they forced him to vacate the planet under threat of imprisonment. All Drift saw were a couple metal cases tucked up under the foot of the berth, still unopened.</p><p>“I can’t get in trouble if I’m offline,” Starscream smirked humorlessly. As if to prove the point, he shuttered off his optics and wiggled himself into a more comfortable position before finally settling.</p><p>It went without saying the ex-Air Commander was always on his guard; still, closing his eyes was a massive display of trust, and Drift hated how hard his spark clenched at the knowledge that as angry as Starscream was with him, he trusted Drift not to attack him when he wasn’t looking.</p><p><em> Because of the claim. Because of what’s owed. </em>That was the real duty of care, wasn’t it? To watch the other’s back, to stand guard, to be allowed the privilege of seeing a fellow ‘Con weak, and not exploit it? </p><p>To protect them?</p><p>During the war Deadlock hadn’t always upheld those promises to the letter--it wasn’t as if he <em> could</em>, without broadcasting to Megatron himself what he’d done to his SIC, or that Starscream had reciprocated it in kind. While claiming was a public symbol of an oath to ward off would-be assailants by broadcasting just <em> who </em> was going to feed you your own fuel pump if you touched their claimant, things had been more complicated for them. As much as it twisted him up, he'd had little choice but to stand aside and watch Starscream suffer the consequences of his traitorous actions at Megatron's hands. And Starscream had never begrudged his lack of action; he had understood.</p><p>The deeply complex "relationship" shared by the two leaders of the Decepticon faction was called many things over the war’s progress, but the only thing Drift had ever called it was a downward spiral--from the start of the fall to the final crash Megatron had made it abundantly clear Starscream was <em> his. </em> It didn’t matter what the Air Commander thought of that proclamation, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Oh, he could ‘face who he liked, and Primus knew any ‘Con with the brass to try was welcome to attack Starscream at their leisure with no fear of repercussions, save whatever retaliation the Seeker visited upon them himself, but <em> no one </em> was allowed to put tooth or talon to him with the intent to stake a claim. To disobey that unwritten order would be to invite your own end.</p><p>Letting Deadlock's fangs sink into his shoulder had been Starscream’s sweetest act of rebellion. Drift recalled the promise of death for that delicious insubordination had made him bite all the harder.</p><p><em> Die for me, </em> the Seeker’s throat had asked.</p><p><em> Gladly, </em>Deadlock’s teeth had answered.</p><p>And then he'd defected.</p><p>Megatron never marked Starscream. Doing so would have held him to standard, and it would have <em> guaranteed </em> no Decepticon in the entire militia, possibly even the D.J.D., could have hurt the flier without having to answer to the Slagmaker himself. It didn’t matter if Starscream deserved it or his suffering amused Megatron, the warlord would be as beholden as the rest of them to their bizarre, possessive culture, and he would have been made to avenge his little pet Seeker.</p><p>Megatron had never cared for being <em> made </em> to do <em> anything; </em>he never claimed his second, and for the remainder of the war Starscream belonged to him regardless.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Drift blurted abruptly. </p><p>Starscream’s optics shuttered back on in surprise. His helm rose an inch, enough to see Drift standing there looking at him, and it took a good portion of the grounder’s self control not to look away. Starscream’s optics had always cut--right then they bordered on <em> dissecting.  </em></p><p>“That was fast,” he muttered, propping himself up on his elbows. “And unnecessary.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I don’t need an apology, or want one,” Starscream sighed dismissively, which was such an obvious lie it was painful. Apologies were admittances of being wrong, and nothing did Starscream love more than being right. Drift would bet good shanix the Seeker couldn’t remember the last time someone had said sorry to him, or meant it.</p><p>“What <em> do </em> you want?” Drift asked.</p><p>“Everything else,” Starscream said crisply, his smile <em> just </em> this side of malicious. “I should have thought that would be obvious.”</p><p>-</p><p><em> “It’s about </em> <b> <em>everything else</em> </b> <em> , Starscream.”  </em></p><p>-</p><p>Drift visibly winced. He supposed he deserved that; if a reminder of his excuse was all Starscream was going to punish him with then he was getting off easy. Knowing the flier as well as he did though, this was only the beginning--he’d come ready to weather the storm of Starscream’s anger and this was the calm before it.</p><p>“Okay,” Drift agreed. He sat down fluidly in the center of the room, legs crossed as if in meditation, and rested his servos on his knees. There were a few feet between them but now they were at eye level, on equal ground; physically, at least. Starscream held all the power here, and he knew it. Drift’s guilt made him shamefully easy to tower over.</p><p>The Seeker didn’t look convinced. “Just like that?” </p><p>Drift held his hands apart. “Just like that. You want to know what I saw in someone else. That’s what I came here to tell you.”</p><p>He thought it was the right thing to say. There was no reason it <em> shouldn’t </em> have been the right thing to say. It <em> felt </em> like the right thing to say. Two million years ago it wouldn't have been the right thing to say either, but it definitely would have been less wrong. Before it would have been the first step in an old dance to temper the fire of Starscream’s fury, Drift’s admittance of failure and how to correct it.</p><p>As they’d discussed two weeks prior however, they were far from the same people they once were: new bodies with new feet, stumbling through new dances, stupid and clumsy and lead-footed.</p><p>Starscream made a noise at the back of his intake, something almost bestial, and his optics narrowed to knife-thing slits of red. A single spasm from his wings was the only warning Drift got, and then the Seeker was off the berth and leaping forward with all the famous grace of his frame-type. One moment he was lying on his front, the next he was on top of Drift, slamming him into the floor with a strut-clattering <em> crash. </em>Starscream held him by the throat with one servo, and the pressure on his main fuel line coupled with the weight of two thrusters stabbing into his knee components sent a trickle of unease down the grounder’s backstrut. </p><p>He wasn’t afraid of Starscream. Sometimes he forgot though, why it was a justified fear to have.</p><p>“Do I look like a newbuild to you? I am not so easily placated,” the Seeker hissed. “After what I did for you, I expect more than just <em> explanations. </em> You say you’re sorry? You want <em> forgiveness? </em> That’s a heavy price, and I don’t think you can afford it. Not anymore.”</p><p>Drift didn’t need clarification, the end of their “dances” had always been the same. There had only ever been one way back into the Seeker’s good graces, and Starscream was right--the cost was beyond the scope of what Drift could pay.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said again, knowing it was pointless. He said it anyway. “I’m so sorry, Star.”</p><p>The other clawed servo snatched his jaw in a vice. “Don’t,” Starscream growled. “I <em> told </em> you--”</p><p>“I know,” Drift said softly. “I know.”</p><p>That was wrong, too. Another misstep. Starscream’s fingers tightened, and the finely honed tips of his claws pricked Drift’s derma, drawing bright pink beads of energon to the surface.</p><p>“No, you really don’t. You have no idea.” Starscream dug his claws in a little deeper.</p><p>“Ratchet is my conjunx."</p><p>And that <em> was </em> the right to say, finally. It was right because it was the <em> everything else. </em>Starscream let go of his face, optics blown wide--he collapsed back with his thrusters caught up under him with an undignified noise of shock.</p><p>“What?” He managed a nanoklik later. His field rippled with disgust and confusion and a sliver of <em> hurt </em> so small Drift thought he might have imagined it. “Are you… serious? The medic? That antique, <em> Hatchet </em>?”</p><p>“Don’t call him that.”</p><p>“Don’t call me <em> ‘Star’</em>.” Starscream righted himself, his optics going straight back to boring a hole through Drift. They’d dimmed to their normal setting--a little dimmer, actually--but were no less harsh for it. “I can’t believe this. Forget the claim, forget everything you were ignorant of on my part--I can’t <em> believe </em> I got replaced by the Hatchet! Ugh, I’d actually prefer you <em> had </em> eloped with the Prime, at least then I’d know I wasn’t passed over for a rusted old <em> fossil!</em>”</p><p>“Starscream,” Drift warned.</p><p>“No!” The Seeker was shakily on his pedes in a blink. “No! This is <em> absurd </em> ! I mean honestly, I’m not some simpleminded, softsparked fool, I wasn’t walking around after the war carrying a torch for you, I knew sooner or later you’d slam your spark into <em> someone’s </em> chassis and call it a day, but <em> Ratchet</em>?!” Starscream balled his servos into fists and pressed them into his forehelm, a growl building somewhere deep in his flight engine. He paced the room back and forth, all moving parts and screeched insults, a self-contained hurricane of wings and gesticulating limbs.</p><p>"Ratchet? Ratchet?! And that whole <em> everything else </em> line of slag, is that to imply he's everything I'm not? I'd like to see him--"</p><p>While Starscream emptied himself of grievances Drift stayed on the floor and waited. Waited, and watched. Starscream ranted with all the staggering power of his formidable processor and Drift silently cataloged everything about him that had changed since their last meeting. They weren’t big changes, in fact they were so subtle they nearly escaped even Drift’s finely honed eye for detail, but once they <em> were </em> noticed they were glaring.</p><p>Starscream’s paint was paler--only by a single shade, yet undeniably less vibrant. The dimness of his optics, which Drift had attributed to the Seeker’s mood, had not regained any substantial luminosity since his initial flare up. The most troubling was something Drift hadn’t processed until he saw Starscream in motion: his protoform had shrunk. Not by a lot and not enough that it would draw a great deal of attention from anyone who wasn’t intimately familiar with the flier’s proportions, but Starscream was <em> definitely </em> slimmer, and his reformat had already left him a svelte mech.</p><p>“You lied,” Drift said, interrupting Starscream’s tirade.</p><p>Mid heel-turn, the ex-Con paused, then rested his servos on his hips. His EM field flashed a hot wave of contempt in Drift’s direction. “Obviously, it’s a passion of mine. I’m quite prolific though, so you’re going to have to be more specific.”</p><p>“You haven’t been recharging.”</p><p>Starscream didn’t move; or, more accurately, every joint in his body locked up simultaneously. His vocoder made an audible little <em> click </em> when he tried to speak. “I know this is hard for you grounders, but don’t be <em> stupid. </em>Of course I--”</p><p>“No you haven’t,” Drift insisted, and he shot to his feet, pointing an accusatory finger at the flier. “Flight frames eat through fuel faster than most, but even <em> they </em> don’t drain their own tanks in stasis. You’ve been up this entire time. In fact,” he added, daring to enter Starscream’s personal space a fraction, “I’m certain you haven’t gone offline <em> one single time </em> since you came aboard.”</p><p>Starscream visibly bristled, all his plating flaring out and snapping back down in a swift undulating wave of metal. Drift felt Starscream briefly lose control of his field, the force of his emotive burst lashing out aggression in every direction before being mercifully severed. Ever the epitome of speed, Starscream’s feelings whipped by faster than Drift could parse with any real accuracy, but he managed to grab hold of the last few cohesive threads dragging along the tail-end of the Seeker’s thought process and not let go.</p><p>
  <em> shutdown-fear-exposed </em>
</p><p>"How does the saying go?" Starscream inquired, voice as pleasant as Drift had ever heard it. Fury lay patiently in wait beneath. "'You can't rest here, there are monsters nearby'? I'm not leaving myself at the mercy of these mouth-venting reprobates."</p><p>"So that's it? You'll never recharge again? You <em> need </em>to rest, Starscream." </p><p>Drift took a step forward. Alarm bells went off in his CPU when Starscream took a step back. Two more steps and he had the Seeker boxed in against the edge of the berth, though he was careful not to trap him. Experience had taught a hard lesson in the past that you <em> always </em> left Starscream an escape route, or he’d make one himself, usually through you.</p><p>"You revoked the right to tell me what I <em> need </em>when you let a bunch of culty Spectralists rebuild you without the only part that mattered," the flier seethed. “In fact, you don’t need to tell me anything, ever again. Whatever else you came here to say I cordially invite you to shove as far up your exhaust as you possibly can, then shove it a little further.”</p><p>“You need to eat something,” Drift continued, as if Starscream hadn't spoken. “Where are your levels right now? They can’t be higher than 5% if your protoform is already starting to cannibalize itself.” He reached for the servo Starscream had punctured him with. “Come on, I’ll take you to the dispensary for your rations.”</p><p>His hand was slapped away with so much force Drift actually recoiled.</p><p>“Don’t--don’t you <em> dare</em>--!!” Starscream shook, EMF absolutely in turmoil. “Don’t start acting like--like you <em> care, </em> like this isn’t some <em> chore </em> to assuage your Primus-damned guilt!”</p><p>Somehow Drift reigned in his deeply coded instinct to strike back. <em> Somehow. </em> Nonetheless he grasped the hilts of his swords and regained the ground he’d lost, stepping right back into Starscream’s space.</p><p>"What I'm <em> trying </em> to do is look out for you! That's why you came here, isn't it? To find me? To have me make good on the promise I made you?" Drift dialed his vocoder down to a whisper and let his field envelope them, pressed it gently but with purpose against the Seeker until it covered him like a second set of armor. Starscream grimaced, flinched away and fought its embrace, but relaxed a fraction at a time the stronger Drift telegraphed his intent. He gave Starscream everything: his guilt, yes, but also his longing and his worry, and the genuine relief at seeing his former comrade alive and whole again. </p><p>Drift dared to reach out a second time. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”</p><p>He lifted his hand to cup the side of Starscream's face, and miraculously, Starscream let him. His optics flickered off with a sigh and he fell into the touch helplessly, strutless and desperate, and pressed so close Drift could <em> feel </em> how tired the Seeker was. </p><p>
  <em> Forget the last two weeks, Starscream was dead on his pedes before he ever got here. </em>
</p><p>Deciding there was no better time to take his life in his own hands than now, Drift folded his other arm around the back of the flier and pulled him flush, cradling Starscream at the helm and waist until they could get no closer.</p><p>A faint, shuddering ventilation puffed out against Drift’s neck, warm and lingering. Minutes filtered by before he opened his intake to say something.</p><p>“What I want… you can’t give me,” Starscream muttered into the cables of Drift’s throat. “I know you can’t. So stop--stop pretending. I don’t need to be coddled, <em> Deadlock</em>.”</p><p>“I know,” the speedster repeated. “I know.”</p><p>Starscream lifted his arms, draped them loosely over Drift’s back kibble and hip. His voice was barely audible. “I waited for you. I waited for <em>so</em> long.” Optics still shut, the Seeker buried his face deeper between neck and collar flaring. “I kept telling myself you’d come back. You’d get your betrayal out of your system like the rest of us dissenters, and then come crawling home again, and everything I did would be worth it.” His slackened grip tightened ever so slightly, claws catching when Drift tensed. “But you never did, and it wasn't.”</p><p>The energon Starscream had drawn on Drift’s face, now dried, cracked and flaked when he spoke. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. My men turned on me, Turmoil tried to execute me. Then Wing found me, and…” Drift shook his head. Starscream had already heard this story--this <em> excuse</em>--so there was no need to tell it again. It hadn’t assuaged the Seeker then, and it wouldn’t assuage him now. There was nothing to give Starscream now but the truth--there was little else Drift <em> could </em> give him any more.</p><p>“It wasn’t until I could see the whole picture, until I was standing outside the Cause looking in, that I realized how far the ‘Cons had fallen from our original ideals, how <em> disillusioned </em> we’d become. I thought I knew what I wanted from life, but I had no idea. Not until I got out. Not until I saw how much there really was. Compared to the war, to serving under Megatron and Turmoil, Crystal City was a paradise.”</p><p>Starscream let out a breathy bark of a laugh. A familiar cruelty seeped into his tightly drawn field, and the further it spread from him the darker his laughter became.</p><p>“Oh <em> yes, </em> I’ll bet it was,” he purred, and too late Drift tried to step away. Starscream, as undercharged as he was, only managed to hold onto Drift long enough to pepper a few deceptively soft pecks along his bare wires and cables, but they all landed, and each one carried the echo of a bite undelivered but sorely desired. Starscream hardly reacted to the speedster’s retreat; his optics were still off and his arms had slumped to the edge of the berth to keep him upright, but he didn’t seem to care that Drift had moved out of range of his mouth.</p><p>
  <em> His little lunging outburst earlier must have eaten up what was left in his reserves. He can’t even open his eyes.  </em>
</p><p>“This is just <em> too </em> funny,” Starscream went on. His helm fell back and his frame shook with laughter more static than mirth, awful and delighted. “Poor Drift, ran away from the big scary Decepticons to an untouched oasis in the desert, found a shiny new home and shiny new friends, and it didn’t make a <em> bit </em> of difference! It’s all gone, all of it. They’re dead, their city is in ruin, and you’re <em> here </em> with the rest of the ‘reformed’ Decepticons the universe threw away, full circle, that is <em> hilarious</em>.”</p><p>Every word was a blow, but Drift refused to give Starscream the satisfaction. He wanted to hurt Drift, and that was comfortably typical, in a way--the only thing Starscream ever <em> had </em> willingly liked to share was his pain.</p><p>“You know, it's actually kind of sweet.” Mockingly wistful, Starscream pressed a servo dramatically to his cockpit. “You fled for your life while I stayed and fought for it, and even after racing to opposite ends of the galaxy, fate, in its grand design, brought us together again.” He chuckled, angry and ragged and aching. Drift could feel Starscream losing control over his field the closer he inched towards a systems shutdown, and without a buffer everything Drift had seen before was magnified in the air around him times a hundred.</p><p>
  <em> How in the Pit is he still standing? He’s practically running on fumes! </em>
</p><p>“Starscream.” Drift radiated calm. “You don’t have to forgive me, okay? You’re right, you don’t <em> have </em> to do anything. Not for me, not anymore. But would you <em> let </em> me do something for <em> you</em>?”</p><p>“No,” the Seeker replied icily, and just like that he sunk to the floor, as elegant in collapsing as he was everything else. Drift rushed to help him automatically, and was stopped dead in his tracks by a set of claws slashing blindly at his hands. “I already <em> told </em> you. You can’t give me what I want. So <em> stop </em> trying to help me.” </p><p>Starscream turned his body away from Drift entirely; he fell toward the berth, and propped his forehead against the side of it with a heavy vent. </p><p>“I’ll take care of myself. Like <em> always</em>.” A dismissive servo flicked in the general direction of the door. “You can go.”</p><p>Drift made no move to leave. “What about--”</p><p>“I <b>said</b> you can <b>go</b>.” </p><p>Starscream spoke in a low tone that promised the worst possible outcome should his demands be unmet. Drift recognized it from every time he’d walked into one of the Seeker’s training drills on the deck of the <em> Nemesis </em> , and the one single time he’d attempted to seize power from Megatron to his face. He knew Starscream didn’t have the energy to carry through his thinly-veiled threat, that the Seeker was halfway to forced recharge already, and that in reality it would be sparklings play to grab hold of the stubborn glitch and <em> make </em> him refuel and rest and go see Magnus for his assessment, but--</p><p>--but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to do it, either. </p><p>
  <em> It’s what Deadlock would have done. And I’m not him. I’m not. </em>
</p><p>The mark of his claim remained seared into Starscream’s <em> sentio metallico</em>, but the former Air Commander had made it clear in no uncertain terms that Drift was henceforth relieved of his duties.</p><p>It was one less burden to bear. Forfeiting his obligation to the flier was a relief, it was the natural progression of the direction both their lives had taken, it was a foregone conclusion Drift had accepted the moment he turned his back on the Cause and never looked back, it was his choice and his fault and it was <em> inevitable, </em>and it ripped his spark out anyway.</p><p>“Right,” Drift said, resigned. “Right, okay.”</p><p>Seeing no other options he simply spun on his heel and left, without another word. Starscream didn’t move or speak, and the door to the hab-suite hissed shut behind Drift the second he stepped into the corridor. </p><p>Drained but determined, he searched his comms for Rodimus’ and Magnus’ codes and sent them both a data packet with a succinct report of Starscream’s behavior and condition.</p><p>
  <em> Starscream has never been in the habit of saying what he means, and two million years isn’t nearly long enough to rid him of that bad habit. He says he doesn’t want my help, but I know better--he’s pulled this same stunt a thousand times.  </em>
</p><p>To win Starscream’s trust, especially after so thoroughly breaking it, was to fight a losing battle. Decepticons were old hands at losing battles, but Drift was an Autobot now, and it was the Autobots who won the war.</p><p>Drift was on the winning side.</p><p><em> He </em> didn’t lose the war.</p><p>And he wasn’t going to lose Starscream, either.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>you know I started writing this to cope but also this is HILARIOUS I can't wait to get to the really fun parts later</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Agitation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This isn't about YOU. It never was.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Starscream next came online, he was immediately aware of three things: he was not in his hab-suite, there was fresh energon in his tank, and he wasn't alone. The overpowering odor of antiseptic solvent greeted his olfactory sensors, mingled with a distantly familiar EMF in close proximity prodding experimentally at the edge of his own field.</p><p>All of which could only mean one thing--he’d finally succumbed to the demands of his frame, and unable to put up a fight, Drift had gone over his head and carted him against his will to the infirmary.</p><p>
  <em> Ugh. Why am I not surprised?  </em>
</p><p>Of <em> course </em> he'd passed out, of <em> course </em> Drift had ignored his desire to be left alone, and of <em> course </em> he'd handed him over to the care of the one mech he wanted to see even less than <em> him</em>.</p><p><em> It would have come to this sooner or later, </em> Starscream accepted. <em> I've never been very good at avoiding a medical berth. </em> The sooner he dealt with whatever came next the sooner he could return to languishing in his partial self-imposed exile aboard a physics-defying rustbucket helmed by half a Prime and-- <em> ugh. </em>Someone was speaking.</p><p>“I know you’re awake. C’mon, up you get. We need to talk.”</p><p>Accustomed to waking up in the harsh light of a medbay, Starscream powered his optics on a few degrees at a time, acclimating slowly to spare blinding himself. Above him loomed the classic glaringly white ceiling of a ship’s medical ward, and just to his right loomed the classically glaring white and red Autobot Chief Medical Officer. </p><p><em> Ratchet. </em> The old mech looked very much the same as Starscream remembered, with only a few rudimentary cosmetic changes from the plating style he’d worn during the war, indicating only basic reformats typical of forged mecha. Oh, and of course, he looked older<em>. </em> Much older. <em> Heh. </em></p><p>Other than holding him at gunpoint or tracking his position on the battlefield from the skies, Starscream had never had a lot of contact with the Autobot medic, for which he’d always been grateful--the nickname Hatchet was well earned, after all--their positions in their respective factions kept them far apart save for those few and far between conflicts. Starscream would have much preferred it stay that way, for a whole <em> plethora </em> of fun little reasons.</p><p>The Seeker blinked a few times to clear his HUD of the remaining errors clogging it up, powered through the ache in his gut, and took stock of his frame. Diagnostic cables trailed from the medical ports in his right arm to a monitor at his berthside, and an energon line fed fuel into his left, albeit only a drop at a time. Any faster would shock his system after weeks running on empty; he knew from experience. The urge to snatch every tube and wire and wrench them from his body swelled, but he shoved it to the back of his processor for now. Such dramatics better served as a last resort escape or a flashy distraction, even if the look on the crotchety old mech’s face <em> would </em> be amusing.</p><p>“I don’t suppose you’d be obliging enough to let me walk out of here, right now, no questions asked?”</p><p>Ratchet turned to the monitor Starscream was hooked up to with a huff. “You? I’ll push you out the door myself given the first opportunity. But Rodimus has ordered me to get you operating at acceptable levels again, so Ultra Magnus can finish your evaluation.” Quick red servos tapped out a few commands, and Ratchet brought several annoyingly familiar alerts up on the screen. Starscream had been repetitively deleting them from his system updates for orns. “So if you could go ahead and explain to me why you were starving yourself into stasis, we can both move on with our lives.”</p><p>Starscream heaved himself up into a sitting position, slapping on the most coy expression he could muster. “Oh, I’ll tell you, <em> Hatchet, </em> if you tell <em> me </em> how you tricked such a fine Decepticon specimen as Deadlock into bonding with you.” Surely a comment like <em> that </em> was enough to get him thrown out.</p><p>Ratchet responded with an unimpressed deadpan, disappointing the Seeker immensely. “Don’t waste your breath, Starscream. Drift already told me you’d try this slag.”</p><p>White wings perked in intrigue. “Ooh, you’ve been informed? Well don’t keep me in suspense doctor, whatever slag am I meant to be trying?”</p><p>“You’re trying to bait and distract me. He said you always fall back on it when you’re hiding something.”</p><p>Starscream buried the lance of rage in his spark at the knowledge Drift was discussing him so candidly behind his back with a practiced sweep of his hand, hiding the gesture in the act of wiping some imagined speck from his cockpit. “Is that all? How boring. And also obvious; I'm always hiding something. Next time ask him to tell you something <em> really </em> scintillating, Primus knows he should have no shortage of our sloppy berthroom tales to tell.” He pretended to recall something suddenly. “Ooh, I know! Ask him if he remembers fragging my heel thrusters! I’ll let you guess who put what where.”</p><p>A quip that off-color about someone’s conjunx would be enough to incense any mech, yet Ratchet remained unflappable. Even more aggravating, he ignored Starscream’s crude suggestion completely, choosing instead to hook a thumb over his shoulder at the readouts on the monitor, and started reading the alerts aloud.</p><p>“Ground sickness. Feedback loops. Prolonged energon deprivation and the beginnings of protoform self-cannibalization.” He counted them off on his fingers. “You haven’t been flying, sleeping, or refueling.”</p><p>Starscream made a show of shrugging in great exaggeration, relishing the stinging tug of the mechanisms injected into his arms pulling taut. “...And?”</p><p>“And,” Ratchet glowered, “you’re endangering your health to make some childish point. Whatever it is you’re trying to prove, leave Drift out of it.” </p><p>Starscream’s backstrut went stiff. His wings followed suit. A manic giggle slipped out of his vocalizer, and then he <em> did </em> rip out the energon line, tearing it out of his arm and leaning into Ratchet’s space in one lethally fluid motion. The medic didn’t retreat, though his optics widened a sliver, and that small victory was enough to spur the Seeker on.</p><p>“Oh yes, poor sweet <em> Drift</em>,” he trilled, smile nothing but teeth. “He really <em> is </em> such a delicate spark, isn’t he? Wouldn’t want to upset him, Primus <em> no</em>.” Laughing, Starscream threw his legs over the side of the berth and stood. “If seeing me in a sorry state was enough to ruffle his plating, I can only imagine how killing all those Autobots must have <em> traumatized </em> him. Ha!”</p><p>The diagnostic cables went next, seized in his clawed grip and ripped from his ports, and by the Pit <em> that </em> hurt, but Starscream found the electric scrape of pain steadying. The monitor flickered and cut to black, and finally, <em> finally, </em>Ratchet gave the Seeker a reaction worth riling him up for: snatching the cables away and shoving Starscream back onto his aft on the berth, hard enough to make his wings bounce in their tensile joints. A million years ago Starscream would have leapt right back up and torn the doctor’s faceplate off for that, but instead he only grinned wider.</p><p>“Knock it off! Primus, he warned me you’d be difficult but this is ridiculous!”</p><p>Starscream shut his port cover with a satisfied click. A thin trickle of energon ran down the crook of his elbow. “Sad, stupid little ground-pounder. I haven’t even <em> begun </em> to get <em> difficult</em>.”</p><p>Ratchet growled. “Keep that up, and you’ll be off this ship in time to die a slow death all over again, this time in a Cybertronian prison.”</p><p>Starscream favored him with a soft gasp of surprise. “Do you promise?” All he got in return was a disgusted scoff, and Ratchet busied himself putting away the cables he’d taken from the ex-Air Commander. Never a fan of being ignored, the Seeker pressed his advantage. “Aw, was that it? Just one errant death threat? My my, and here I was hoping for some more of that famous Autobot hospitality. Honestly, where’s Prowl when you need him?”</p><p>Ratchet didn’t rise to the bait a second time. Starscream flicked his wings, and altered his approach.</p><p>“So, doctor. How much <em>did</em> Drift tell you about me? About us?” When the medic didn’t respond, Starscream took that as his cue to start pulling out all the stops. “You didn’t seem shocked to hear about me and him fragging, so I can only assume he filled you in. Just like he used to fill <em> me </em> in.”</p><p>Ratchet growled again, and rounded on the Seeker with an EM field reined in tight. “Don’t you ever shut up?”</p><p>Starscream licked his lips. “If one has the right tools for the job, yes.” He darkened his optics and leaned into the medic’s space again, his smile as seductive as it was mocking. “And I’m sure you know just as well I how <em> well-equipped </em> Drift is, mm?”</p><p>The affront in Ratchet’s optics was more satisfying than the last overload Starscream had enjoyed. Then, something in the medic’s expression shifted.</p><p>“You’re a poorer manipulator than I remember,” he said, chuckling. “Is trying to gross me out and make me, what, <em> jealous, </em> the best you can do?”</p><p>Starscream narrowed his eyes, worried the tip of one of his claws between his sharpened denta--never breaking optic contact--and said nothing.</p><p>It <em> was </em> the best he could do under the circumstances, and they both knew it. He couldn’t shred Ratchet limb from limb like he wanted. Not if he didn’t want a swift ejection from the Autobot fold into the unforgiving depths of space, or to spend the rest of his life rusting away in a cell. Starscream was too vain to truly crave an ugly death in the void, and while, if given the option, he <em> could </em> accept an undignified death in jail, he’d prefer it be in a prettier, cleaner cage, like <em> The Lost Light.  </em></p><p>Seemingly content that the Seeker’s acerbic wit had reached its end, Ratchet returned to the console he’d typed on a klik ago and brought all the error messages back up on the screen.</p><p>“If you’re refusing my care because you’re worried it means I’m concerned for your well-being on a personal level and that offends your Decepticon sensibilities, then don’t. I’m doing this because it’s my job, and because the Captain is expecting a full report on your condition.”</p><p>Starscream returned his servos to the berth languidly, watching Ratchet watch him, and sunk all ten talons deep into the padded mesh bedding. It parted between his razor digits with silky ease; he ripped it up idly, cherishing the way the doctor’s optical ridges creased impossibly tighter.</p><p>“My condition? I’m really quite surprised you have to ask. You already know the root cause of my ‘malfunctions’, doctor. After all… you’re <em> bonded </em> to it.” The teasing lilt to his voice went cold, and Ratchet froze.</p><p>“Are you implying <em> this</em>--” he gestured to the readout on the screen, “--is somehow Drift’s fault? Last I checked, he was the one who dragged your sorry aft in here!”</p><p>Primus, Starscream wanted to hurt him. Hurt them <em> both. </em>This was too much. He’d had enough.</p><p>“You really don’t know, do you? It <em> is </em> his fault.” </p><p>Ratchet arched a skeptical brow ridge at him. “Oh, please. You expect me to believe that?” <em> Prove it, </em>the medic’s face demanded.</p><p>So he did. </p><p>Smiling, smug and raw, Starscream drew his servos through the mess he’d made of the berth covers, traced them over the smooth, rounded plating of his thighs and up across the glimmering glass of his cockpit, high to the place where red met black at the apex of his neck and shoulder.</p><p>“Curious. He told you so much, but not this?” </p><p>Helm tilted, Starscream slid a hand up his throat and buried his fingers into the protruding edge of his collar flaring. In exactly the same fashion as he had for Drift, he jerked the stiff metal aside with a grunt, quick and hard until it gave enough to shift. Craning to one side Starscream angled himself into the harshest beam of medbay light and presented to Ratchet the inarguable proof of Drift’s role in the Seeker’s deliberate self-destruction.</p><p>Ratchet stared at it, optics focused with disturbing intensity. Starscream saw the recognition in Rachet’s eyes, not just of what caused the distinct pattern of the mottled silver scar, but also its origin--Deadlock had always had, after all, <em> very </em> unique teeth, and what bondmate worth their spark wouldn’t recognize their own conjunx’s handiwork, reflected back at them from the soft metal flesh of another, like some twisted copy of what they’d always thought to be a private remnant of <em> their </em> passion?</p><p>After a brief eternity, Ratchet cleared his vocalizer, and said, “Always assumed that kind of thing was just rumors.”</p><p>No admittance of defeat could be clearer. Starscream fingered at the mark embedded in his body with his free hand and smirked, feeling as victorious as he did nostalgically hollow.</p><p>“Afraid not, dear doctor. For once, Autobot propaganda told you no lies--we Decepticons did, and still <em> do </em> in fact mark each other.” The Seeker swept his hand over the scar over and over, smoothing it gently with his fingertips again and again. The dulled sensation of pressure on the rarely touched mark calmed Starscream, and he shut off his optics with a smile lacking all his previous vitriol. It was an expression turned inward, meant solely for him and the face he saw in his memories, and of a time he wasn’t certain he could ever call <em> better, </em>but it had been… good.</p><p>Starscream onlined his optics and caught Ratchet staring at him with an inscrutable expression. The Seeker’s smile evaporated, replaced by something haughtier that he had to force into a smirk.</p><p>“I imagine I don’t have to tell you who gave me this,” Starscream said. “Though it appears Drift’s explanation of the nature of our <em> agreement </em> left something to be desired. Do you want me to tell you?”</p><p>“Nothing you say can be trusted,” Ratchet retorted, servos clenched. Starscream could feel the latent rage in the medic’s field, undercut by a current of disgust mixed with the sharp tang of trepidation.</p><p>
  <em> Fear. He’s afraid.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s afraid of what his darling and devoted conjunx will tell him when he asks for the truth, and he’s even more afraid of what the confirmation of that truth will mean. </em>
</p><p><b> <em>Good.</em> </b> </p><p>The plating exposing the ex-Con’s scar was released and shoved impatiently back into place. “Then ask the one who bit this into me for yourself.” Starscream hoisted himself off the berth a second time, and he made sure to flutter his wings in Ratchet’s faceplate as he stretched. “Honesty <em> is </em> an Autobot thing, right? If Deadlock is as converted as you all believe, I’m sure he won’t hesitate to convince you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he made a promise he just couldn’t keep.”</p><p>The CMO had nothing to say to that.</p><p>The door out of the medbay beckoned. So far as Starscream was concerned he’d answered all the medic’s questions and given him more than enough context to fill in the blanks of the ones he hadn’t. <em> Although I’d </em> <b> <em>love</em> </b> <em> to see the report, Primus only knows what he plans to tell them about this. </em>Not that it mattered much to Starscream--he doubted anything Ratchet told Magnus or Rodimus would qualify him for removal, not after some of the barbaric absurdity other members of the crew had gotten up to long before he ever arrived.</p><p>Starscream refused to speculate how Meg--how <em> he</em>--would react. </p><p><em> You don’t care what he thinks. You </em> <b> <em>don’t</em></b><em>. </em></p><p>“Is this the part where you chase me out so you can comm Drift and complain about what a glitch I am? Or are you saving that for <em> after </em> you inform the Magnus I’m conscious and ready for my review?”</p><p>Ratchet didn’t say anything for a klik, then muttered, “I commed Ultra Magnus when you came online. He’s waiting in his office.” </p><p>Starscream couldn’t resist--he burst into a gale of raucous laughter, delighting in the way shameful color gathered in the Autobot’s cheeks and the way he could no longer meet the Seeker’s optics. This exile was turning out to be the most fun he’d had in eons, who would have ever guessed? Halfway to the exit he even offered Ratchet a little bow at the waist and gave him another good fluttering from his wings.</p><p>“Then I won’t keep you any longer from airing your grievances, doctor. Please, tell Drift I said hello, and,” the Seeker went on, optics flashing, “if he changes his mind about giving me what I want, he knows where to find me.”</p><p>And with that he spun and strode out through the medbay doors, making sure to throw a little extra sway into his hips as he went, hoping Ratchet got a good optic-full of his curvy red aft before the doors slid shut behind him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ratchet, calling his husband five minutes after starscream leaves: "Drift, did you... did you actually fuck his thrusters?"</p><p>drift, choking on his energon: "HE TOLD YOU?!"</p><p> </p><p>heheheh it's all down hill from here, folks</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Abet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>What have YOU done?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ratchet commed Drift almost immediately after Starscream left the medbay. </p><p>[<em> You’ve been holding out on me, kid. </em> ] The speedster didn’t have to ask what he was holding out on. The medic’s message wasn’t even accusatory, but knowing Ratchet <em> knew</em>, it felt like a chunk of undigested energon had just dropped into the bottom of his tank.</p><p>[<em> Ratch, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you sooner, but-- </em>]</p><p>[<em> I got it, don’t sweat it. </em> ] The tone of the comm was clipped, yet no animosity flooded the bond between them. Drift’s relief was instant and euphoric. [ <em> I’ve always known Screamer was a slag-headed glitch, but dealing with him up close for that long is… something else. I can see why you hesitated to give me the whole story between you two. </em>]</p><p>Drift ex-vented. [<em> Yeah, he’s… </em>] </p><p>(<em>obnoxious-cruel-brilliant</em>)</p><p>[<em> He’s a lot. </em> ] A beat passed. [ <em> What did he say? He didn’t threaten you, did he? </em>]</p><p>[<em> No, but he owes me some sheets. Couldn’t sink those claws of his into me, so he took things out on my cot. </em>]</p><p>Drift muted his comm so Ratchet wouldn’t hear his soft, surprised laughter. [<em> Sounds like him. He wrecked Hook’s equipment all the time back in the day. Never was much of a model patient. </em> ] A short crackle of static came from his vocalizer as he cleared his throat. [ <em> Listen, Ratch, whatever he said, it doesn’t--it doesn’t change things. You don’t have to worry, I promise. </em>]</p><p>The next time Ratchet’s voice carried over comms, it held the warmth that had drawn Drift to him in the first place. [<em> I know, kid. Never doubted us for a second. </em> ] The medic sighed, and it was a deeply sobering sound. [ <em> So it’s true then, huh? You and him were...? </em>]</p><p>
  <em> Claimed. </em>
</p><p>Drift ran both hands over his faceplate, thankful he hadn’t yet left his hab-suite to heed Rodimus’ summons to the bridge. [<em> Yeah. Yeah, Ratch, it’s true. </em> ] He heard his conjunx swear under his breath, and his spark slowly twisted in his chamber. Drift took a minute to get his thoughts together, and then tried to launch into his long overdue explanation. [ <em> Believe me, it wasn’t something I deliberately set out to make happen. I hated Starscream as much as the next mech when I first signed on to the Cause, and I probably would have for the whole war, if i hadn't seen-- </em> ] Drift’s vocoder stalled. [ <em> He... there was--I saw-- </em>]</p><p>--saw Starscream, alone in the communal washracks an hour from dawn, bent at the waist under a spray of solvent with his servo down his throat, forcing himself to purge something into the drain again and again, something that was the wrong color to be fuel, and there had been so <em> much, </em> and then Starscream had seen him, seen Drift--seen <em> Deadlock</em>--hovering in the entryway watching him; watching him puke his guts out and shiver and gag, and <em> Primus </em> if the face Starscream made in that nanoklik wasn’t a face Drift had seen a thousand times before and <em> never </em> wanted to see again.</p><p>[<em> Easy Drift, </em> ] came Ratchet’s patient voice, sensing the acute distress radiating through their link. [ <em> I imagine this isn’t exactly the easiest. You want to save it for later, when we’re off-shift? </em>]</p><p>Drift nodded, then remembered Ratchet couldn’t see him, so he sent his affirmations through the bond along with his fervent appreciation. [<em> Thanks, Ratch. Do you still keep the engex in your office desk drawer? </em>] He had the sneaking suspicion he’d need the high-grade fuel’s help to get the whole story out; regaling the mess to Ratchet was hard enough over comms, he couldn’t fathom trying to get the words out sober while looking his conjunx full in the face. As much as he knew the doc loved him, Drift’s flagging self-worth in the face of possible rejection from the mech he loved above all others convinced him he was skirting disaster by telling Ratchet the truth. It took the shared thrumming in his spark to remind him that his bondmate had already absolved him of every other crime he’d committed, all of them far worse atrocities than having once been involved with Starscream.</p><p>[<em> I do. Want me to stick it in the specimen cooler to chill before you get here? </em>] </p><p>[<em> You must be an avatar of Primus, because that sounds like heaven. </em>] A half-muffled chuff of amusement from the other side of the line melted Drift’s spark, and knowing he could make Ratchet laugh even with such a daunting conversation awaiting them later in the cycle gave him the confidence to finally send a reply ping to Rodimus.</p><p>A smile was evident in the medic’s voice when he spoke again. [<em> Whatever you say, kid. See you tonight. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Yeah. Love you, Ratch. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Love you too, kid. </em>]</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Rodimus informed Drift, once the doors to the bridge were sealed behind them, that he’d gotten Ratchet’s report about a breem before the ex-Con walked in.</p><p>“You know I always figured someone like Screamy would be too, I don’t know, <em> high-maintenance </em> to let himself be in anything but perfect condition at any given second. According to what the doc sent over, the dude’s been a mess internally for ages.”</p><p>"A mess? How?"</p><p>Drift frowned, and let Rodimus lead him through the details of the Seeker’s medical exam.</p><p>“Alright, so,” he said, propping his pedes up on the main console, “based on the scans Ratchet ran while he was out, Starscream’s been reformatted like half a dozen times and just about every part of him has been replaced once or twice, but his base protoform, the stuff closest to his endoskeleton? Seems like a lot of it is original, which isn’t super weird all things considered, but what <em> is </em> weird is how much of it is fragged up. Like, I mean <em> majorly </em> fragged up, and never healed. There's so much nerve damage Ratch is surprised Screamy isn't hooked on pain dampeners."</p><p>Drift saw two millenniums pass across his optics in the space of a nanoklik, and within it were more examples of bone-deep punishment than most mecha had processor space to store. An ache began to throb in his chest with the knowledge another two million years were piled atop that, filled with what he could only imagine was more of the same, and inevitability much, much worse.</p><p>In the past Starscream had always been needlessly dramatic about any nick or scratch that drew energon, and never missed a chance to make his woe everyone else’s problem. Some days, after particularly harsh battles or beatings, the Seeker acted as if he were the one person in the known universe to ever sever a fuel line or break an arm or shatter an optic, and he used his expansive EM field and unique vocal range to guarantee the entire Decepticon war machine shared in his suffering.</p><p>How strange it was then, to be informed by someone else of Starscream’s pain; pain so old and so much a part of him that apparently the core of his body was <em> comprised </em> of it, and he had never once uttered a <em> word </em> of it, then or now, to the one person he’d chosen to place his well-being into the hands of.</p><p>--</p><p><em> "Do you have any idea what it took?! What Megatron </em> <b> <em>did</em> </b> <em> to me?!" </em></p><p>--</p><p>Maybe he was right not to.</p><p>Drift took a long in-vent, and rubbed the front of his helm. “Okay. None of that is particularly comforting to hear. But you didn’t get that report until right before I arrived. So what did you actually want to talk to me about?”</p><p>Rodimus twirled the datapad he’d read the report off of between his hands, and did a terrible job of acting like he wasn’t anxious in the slightest. “Ha, well, it’s actually kind of funny, except that it isn’t, but uh…” He put his pedes back on the floor to better face Drift and tossed the datapad into the empty co-pilot chair behind him. “It’s still about Starscream. I’ve been meaning to bug you about this for weeks, but every time I called you were busy--walking the hallway his room is in, I mean.”</p><p>The heavy look he leveled at the ex-Con made it clear he knew something was going on. All at once Drift realized Rodimus’ mind was probably jumping to all sorts of wild conclusions about him and the Seeker, and with the things he’d seen and heard, Drift couldn’t exactly blame him for trying to put two and two together: offering to give Starscream the tour, taking him back to his hab-suite after hours, ritualistically stalking the entrance to his room for two weeks, bringing him to the medbay unconscious and half-dead, and then fleeing before Starscream came back around…</p><p>
  <em> Primus preserve me. </em>
</p><p>Stifling a groan was out of the question. Drift had already held in far more than was healthy the past fourteen days and was long past the point of muting himself, and here at least, just him and Rodimus, with the rest of the command bridge vacated for their chat, he knew he was free to say what he felt without worrying. Rodimus was good like that. It was part of what made him such a great amica.</p><p>He trusted Rodimus, and giving him the condensed version now would be helpful in easing into telling Ratchet the entire story later, especially since he wasn’t privy to any of the extraneous details Drift’s conjunx was.</p><p>“Okay. Let me clear the air now, so you don’t harbor any misconceptions. Starscream and I, we used to--” </p><p>(<em>date-frag-love</em>)</p><p>‘’--see each other, during the war. We weren’t public about it for reasons that aren’t my place to tell. I defected, he didn’t. We ended up on opposite sides of the war, and when it was over, on opposite sides of the galaxy.”</p><p>Elbows on knees with his chin propped up on his palms, Rodimus listened with rapt attention--encouraging <em> and </em> eerie.</p><p>“When our paths diverged the way they did I took it as a sign from the universe we weren’t meant to be. I moved on. He didn’t.” Under his plating, the spot where Starscream had once sunk his teeth in itched. “He had no idea about Ratch and me being bonded, so when he tried to pick up where we left off, I rejected him.”</p><p>“Yikes. Ol’ Screamy has never been the type to take rejection well.”</p><p><em> You don’t know the half of it. </em> “Not always, no. And knowing that, among <em> other </em> things about how he is, I kept waiting for a chance to run into him, because a ‘clandestine’ meeting in the corridor is something he handles better than being cornered with someone between him and the door.”</p><p>“Except he never left his room.”</p><p>Drift nodded. “And I didn’t have his commlink code, either. So I finally just asked to come in, and he let me. Our talk didn’t go as well as I hoped though, and I could tell he was crashing, so I left to get Ratchet. We found him on the floor, in the middle of a mass system failure.” Drift spread his servos wearily. “The rest you know.”</p><p>“The rest I know,” Rodimus agreed. “Well, me and Megs and Ultra Magnus. He got the report the same time as me, so he probably went over it punctuation point by punctuation point with Starscream sitting right across from him.”</p><p>Drift’s tank lurched and he took a half step toward the door. “Scrap, right, the assessment. Knowing Magnus it’ll take joors.” He started to go, and when Rodimus reached to stop him Drift jerked out of range purely on instinct, swords already partly unsheathed. His faceplate flushed apologetically and he had to manually switch off his battle protocols, hastily shoving his blades back in their scabbards. </p><p>“Frag, my bad!” The roadster laughed, offering his hand again placatingly. “I forget about that sometimes. But don’t go running off just yet, you said so yourself he’s gonna be in there a while. Let me get the crew back in here, and let’s take this to my office, that way you won’t be far when Magnus finally wraps things up and <em> I </em>can get back to foisting my most boring responsibilities off on Buckethead.” </p><p>As helpless as ever to the once-Prime’s whims, Drift managed a thin smile, and to Rodimus’ office they went.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>It turned out the ‘this’ Rodimus wanted to take back to a more private setting were all his desperate, prying, <em> burning </em> questions about what ‘seeing’ the second-in-command of the Decepticons was like.</p><p>“I have to know,” he begged, hands clasping in front of his chassis and everything. “Please, Drift, buddy, you have <em> got </em> to tell me.”</p><p>On the list of things the ex-assassin wanted to talk about with his best friend, fragging Starscream ranked just below talking to <em> Ratchet </em> about fragging Starscream--but he’d given up <em> that </em> particular ghost once already, and if he could in fact tell Ratchet he used to make a decent go of putting the Seeker through a berth, then he could survive telling Rodimus.</p><p>
  <em> At least Roddy is excited to hear about it.  </em>
</p><p>“I’ll tell you,” Drift conceded. An unyielding palm brought Rodimus’ excited gasp to an abrupt halt a second later, stopping whatever his first inquiry was going to be before it shot it out of his intake. “But <em>only</em> if I have your word that everything I tell you stays between us. If you promise to never repeat any of what I tell you for as long as you may live, then yes, I’ll answer any question you have about… he and I.”</p><p>Rodimus was <em> vibrating, </em> he was so ecstatic. “Of course! Prime’s honor!” He slapped a hand over his spark, and crossed it too for good measure. “Oh man, Drift, I wish I’d known earlier, you have <em> no idea </em> how long I’ve been trying to talk to someone that actually fragged him. Besides Megs, I mean.”</p><p>Drift couldn’t help the quizzical look he gave his friend. “Why?” Another lurch of the tank. “Please tell me you don’t have a crush on him, Roddy.”</p><p>Immediately the captain was waving his hands to dispel the notion like a bad fog. “God no! <em> Primus </em> no! Screamer is a bastard, full stop. I don’t hate him the way I used to, but I still don’t like him, like, at all. Not that way, no.” It took a klik for what he’d said to sink in, and suddenly his optics snapped to Drift, bright and fearful. “Slag, sorry, that was--”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Drift assured him, moving to lean against the desk, arms crossed. “Trust me, he’s been called far worse, and he even earned most of it.”</p><p>“Yeah, still, you used to have a thing with him, I should keep that kind of commentary to myself. Or at least, I should save trash-talking exes for Ratch to handle.”</p><p>“‘Used to’ have,” Drift reminded. “Past-tense. I told you, I moved on. And besides, don’t feel too bad, his first night here he called you a discount Prime.”</p><p>“Oh, well, then I take it back, I’m not sorry at all,” Rodimus grinned. “To answer your question though, the reason I wanna know is because if I ignore everything else about him, Screamer is probably the hottest thing on two legs. I’ll be honest, I’m not really a flier kind of guy, but there’s something about <em> him </em> that always revved me up back in the day. Like, I hated him, but I also wanted him to sit on my face, you know?”</p><p>
  <em> Oh yes, I know. Better than I ever thought I would.  </em>
</p><p>“You were one of those,” Drift said instead.</p><p>“One of those?”</p><p>“Both factions had them,” the speedster explained. “Mecha who couldn’t help but drool over the ranking enemy officers. I’m sure you know you’re far from the first Autobot to have angrily lusted after Starscream. It’s half the reason Megatron used him and the rest of the Seekers for so many of the recruitment posters.”</p><p>Rodimus’ faceplate was tinged pink. “Both sides, huh? Who did the ‘Cons hang posters of over their berths and self-service to in the barracks?”</p><p>A laugh snuck out of Drift’s mouth, shocking more color into Rodimus’ cheeks. “Sorry, it’s just… You don’t know how it was. No one was thick-helmed enough to <em> dare </em> displaying Autobot propaganda where someone else could see. Could you imagine, having to explain to Soundwave why the screensaver on your datapad was Optimus Prime, or Prowl, or one of the Wreckers? At that point eating your gun would be a better option than whatever Megatron would do to you.”</p><p>Gears were audibly turning in Rodimus’ head, and then he asked, “Were there any of me?”</p><p>Drift bit his lip. <em> If I tell him it’s going to do terrible things to his ego. </em>“Are you sure you want to know?”</p><p>“Yes!” Rodimus insisted, slamming his hands on his desk, smile and optics huge and glittering. “I’m slagging <em> gorgeous, </em> no mech can resist the Rod Bod, not even a Decepticon!”</p><p><em> Primus preserve me, </em>Drift thought again, hiding a grin behind his hand. “I don’t know, Roddy. They used to say some pretty wild things about you and your paint job.”</p><p>“My paint job?” He looked down at himself, then back at Drift, brow ridge cocked. “Like what?”</p><p>“Like how they wanted to hold you down and take turns trying to ‘put out the fire’,” Drift supplied, utterly shameless when not on the topic of himself. “Pump so much transfluid onto your chest you couldn’t see the flames anymore, that sort of thing.”</p><p>“Holy shit,” Rodimus whispered, taken aback enough to revert to Earth-based expletives. “That’s kinda hot.” Drift felt his fellow speedster frantically wrangle his field back under control before it gave too much away. “Okay, um. We’ll come back to that later. You and Screamy?”</p><p>Drift let his hand fall into his lap, and tried to fade his smile into something more serious. “Right. So, what did you want to know?”</p><p>There was no hesitation. “What was it like? Clanging with <em> the </em> Seeker?”</p><p>Memories queued to the front of Drift’s mind almost immediately; he faced away from his captain and stared at a far point on the wall, and tried to order the thoughts and feelings he’d been reintroduced to over the last few days into something he could verbally express. Rodimus wasn’t the first person to ask him that question--he wasn’t even the first person on the ship, since Ratchet held that honor--and if Starscream decided to use their history against him (of which Drift had no doubt) then he wouldn’t be the last, either.</p><p>“You probably have an idea already,” he started, because that was how he always began answering the question. “And whatever it is, it’s likely far from the truth.”</p><p>“What makes you think you know what I’m picturing?” Rodimus challenged. </p><p>“Because everyone thinks they know what Starscream is like.” Drift’s optics powered down to a faint glow. “And <em> everyone </em> is always wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>He passed the assessment.</p><p>
  <em> Of course I did. These braindead Autobots take in former ‘Cons like it’s their mission in life.  </em>
</p><p>And maybe it was. Not even his less than stellar medical report was enough to dissuade them--if anything, it probably convinced them, pitying type that they were. All three of Command had stamped their digital glyphs of approval, all within a minute of receiving the update from the walking <em> fossil </em> in the medbay. Magnus had gone over it word for word with him, and lesser mechs would certainly have felt properly shamed by their behavior, what with the way the ex-Enforcer tried to draw attention to how irresponsible Starscream had acted and how unbecoming it was of someone with his history of leadership and control. Starscream, however, was used to getting grilled on his shortcomings by <b>Megatron</b>, and Magnus could only <em> dream </em> of getting anywhere <em> near </em> that level of guilt-inducing disappointment. </p><p>It would have helped if Starscream actually felt like a failure for almost letting himself starve to death, but then again, that wasn’t <em> his </em> failure, now was it? Starscream hadn’t absolved Drift of his duty of care until <em> after </em> he’d tried to help--the way he saw it, Drift was to blame.</p><p>
  <em> Two million years ago you wouldn’t have waited half a month to demand to see me. Two million years ago you’d have been pounding at my door an hour after we argued, sweet-talked your way inside, and then--and then…  </em>
</p><p>And well, that was the past. No use dwelling on it any longer, right? Those were mistakes of the past, and free from Magnus’ office with no one around to stop him, Starscream was feeling ready to make some <em> new </em> ones.</p><p>“Now let’s see,” the Seeker said to no one, scanning his memory banks as he took to the corridor, “Drift said the bar is <em> this </em> way, I believe?”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Starscream stepped into Swerve’s, and a hush fell over the scattered crowds of patrons.</p><p>It lasted less than a klik, and when conversations resumed they did so much more quietly. Used to the undivided attention of so many optics and whatever motivations lay behind them Starscream didn’t slow his stride at all.</p><p>Exuding confidence like he had every right to be there, he strutted right up to the bar and took a seat with his back to the wall. The bartender, who had watched his approach with a slack jaw, searched and scanned around him like he was praying for someone else to miraculously appear and take Starscream’s order for him--when no such entity materialized, he squared his tiny shoulders and came sauntering over, polishing a glass with strained joviality.</p><p>“Heya, name’s Swerve, and this is my place. Rules are no guns, no swords, no briefcases, and if you’re planning to kill someone we only ask that you take it outside.”</p><p>Starscream looked down his nose at the minibot. “They confiscated my weapons when I boarded.”</p><p>“Oh, cool!” Swerve brightened, suddenly much less concerned about the Seeker’s presence, which only further solidified Starscream’s sparkfelt opinion that all Autobots were idiots. That feeling continued to grow the longer Swerve spoke. “You know, I’m actually surprised to see you in here. We were all placing bets on when you’d finally show your faceplate, and I had two-hundred shanix riding on it taking another month, at least. Ya know, ‘cuz of your reputation.”</p><p>The ‘as a coward’ went unsaid.</p><p>Starscream’s lips pressed into a thin line, which he then let curve upwards into a devious smile. He made a show of drawing a file from his subspace and sharpened his claws with bored, half-dimmed optics, and said rather smoothly, “Sweetspark, I’ve murdered more people with my right hand than you’ve ever met in your whole life. Is there a drink menu?”</p><p>The red minibot’s slag-eating grin faltered, ever so slightly. “Heh. ‘Course. Lemme go grab that.” Swerve power-walked as nonchalantly as he could in the opposite direction, and Starscream let his wings relax, momentarily satisfied.</p><p><em> If I’m to have a reputation, I’d prefer it be the one I fought to earn. </em> So often mecha got caught up on the ‘cowardly’ part, they conveniently forgot the ‘murderous bastard’ part. Honestly, was he complicit in genocide, or wasn’t he? If no one was going to bother remembering that he helped save their entire race, the <em> least </em> they could do was remember that he also helped eradicate it.</p><p>While waiting for Swerve to return, Starscream diligently worked the metal file against this fingertips until they were sharp enough to cut diamonds and took stock of the rest of the rabble milling about the bar. There was hardly a soul he knew, but that was par for the course--99% of the crew consisted of Autobots, and the Seeker hadn’t wasted too much of the war memorizing anyone that wasn’t part of the enemy Command or a high-profile target. All the ‘Bots he knew from the get-go already on board were in fact former officers, or former Decepticons made over to be ‘reformed’. </p><p><em> And they called </em> <b> <em>me</em> </b> <em> a traitor, </em> Starscream thought, shuddering at the thought of Megatron and Drift walking around with their bright crimson Autobot badges. <em> Ugh. I might have abandoned the ‘Cons, but at least </em> <b> <em>I</em> </b> <em> kept my spine.  </em></p><p>There was one mech he recognized at a glance, sitting across the room with some teal and white jet that Starscream also thought looked familiar, but couldn’t place why. He could surmise his identity though, based on what Ultra Magnus had told him of their quaint little “science division”. Since the strapping microscope with the eyepiece could be none other than Perceptor, the other one had to be Brainstorm. Magnus had listed them both and their lab as ‘hazardous’ when going over potential duty placements during Starscream’s assessment, and the Seeker was intrigued that information regarding anything scientific was being offered so readily to him. When Starscream pressed if working in the labs was a viable option open to him, Magnus told him it was, but not until further trust had been built--meaning they still suspected he possessed ulterior motives, and was plotting to kill them all.</p><p>Starscream found it incredibly flattering. It was good to know <em> someone </em> still knew what he was capable of, even if it did temporarily bar him from doing one of the few things left in life he enjoyed. In the end he’d elected to take as many shifts of ‘rivet duty’ as possible, as well short flying patrols outside of the ship; he might have let slip during the interview that his altmode was completely space-worthy, <em> and </em> that, as a Seeker, his unique telemetry would pick up trace energon signals, and one never could have enough energon, right?</p><p>Both jobs would be dull, repetitive, spark-numbing monuments to manual labor. They would also keep him out of the ship for joors at a time, and the less he saw of his fellow <em> crewmates </em> the better.</p><p>The less he saw of Drift, the better.</p><p>“Is that menu coming, or not?”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t until halfway through an explanation of how <em> no, </em> Seekers <em> aren’t </em> insatiable in the berth, that’s just nonsense from fetish videos being taken for fact, that Rodimus noticed there was an unread message in his inbox, blinking at the corner of his HUD. </p><p>“Sorry Drift, one nanoklik, Magnus sent me something.” They sat in silence while Rodimus read, and Drift felt his friend’s field contract with alarm almost immediately.</p><p>“What? What did he say?” Drift slid off the desk they’d both been sitting on and reached for where he’d left his swords. “Is something wrong?”</p><p>“No, no, everything is totally fine,” Rodimus promised, easing back into his chair. “It’s just, he pinged me half an hour ago to tell me Screamer was done and left his office, and I uh, I was distracted and didn’t see it until just now.” The speedster looked decently sheepish, so Drift tamped his annoyance down before it had a chance to form, and sighed.</p><p>“Did he say where Starscream went? Does he know?”</p><p>“Hold on, I’ll ask.” Rodimus’ optics took on that glazed, faraway quality indicative of private commlink discussion, then flashed a moment later. “Says according to the camera footage from outside his office, Screamer took off towards Swerve’s.”</p><p>Drift was out the door without saying goodbye.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ngl this chapter was the most fun to write so far~ next chapter, Starscream prepares to make a public spectacle of himself, and Ratchet learns some very unfortunate truths...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Abandon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Well, go on. No one is going to stop YOU.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(For maximum effect, the song playing in the bar is Aura, by Lady Gaga, I had the ARTPOP album on repeat while writing the whole bar scene.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Swerve’s menu was impressively expansive for a bar on a ship in the middle of the nowhere-universe. Once Starscream had gotten his servos on it he didn’t bother reading any of the offered fare--he just skimmed until he found what he originally came looking for, pleased to see it was on tap.</p><p>“Mercury, triple-filtered,” he ordered. “And leave the bottle.” </p><p>“One Pretty Poison, straight up.” From under the counter Swerve produced a slim, chrome bottle with the words <em> Mercurial Mix </em> engraved on the side, and emptied a third of the contents into one of the fancier glasses that had survived the adventure thus far. “Normally I wouldn’t bother, but you’re the first person to order one of these since we left Cybertron.”</p><p>Starscream wasn’t shocked to hear that. Mercury was thick, bitter, and guaranteed to overcharge anyone in one drink except high-velocity flightframes and racers. It gummed up intakes, coated fuel tanks, and took just short of forever to burn off, all while leaving your glossa looking like you’d been licking factory-grade spray can nozzles of primer in gunmetal gray. It was meant to be used as a metallic drizzle for the edges of glasses, or a shiny decorative swirl in darker, thinner fuel--what it <em> wasn’t </em> made for was to be consumed alone, in excess.</p><p>Which was precisely what Starscream intended to do. Swerve slid the glass across the bar into the Seeker’s waiting hand before seeing to his other patrons, and left the bottle as requested.</p><p>Pinched between two claws, the slim-necked glass swayed, and the glittering liquid inside swayed with it, sloshing decadently from side to side as smooth and sheer as the face of a mirror. Starscream sat perched at his bar stool, chin on the back of his hand, and stared at his own reflection inside his drink.</p><p>
  <em> I suppose this where I propose a toast to something. Isn’t that how it goes?  </em>
</p><p>It was difficult to recall. When was the last time he toasted to anything? Before this he was too busy running a planet; before that, too busy running a war. </p><p><em> The academy, </em> he thought. <em> I used to waste good shanix on overpriced swill like this all the time, and TC and Warp and I would drink ourselves stupid until we all passed out on the floor of my craphole apartment.  </em></p><p>He missed that. Missed them.</p><p>Not that he hadn't gotten absolutely slagfaced while serving under Megatron, he'd just been more… <em> private </em> about it. Once everything started to go downhill and the tides of victory changed direction, it became less and less advisable for <em> anyone, </em> let alone the SIC, to cripple their physical and mental faculties for the cozy embrace of total processor blackout via engex. If one wanted to get drunk, they did it in the back bays hidden from sight behind a stack of crates, or in one of the hundreds of storage closets where Soundwave couldn’t easily spy.</p><p>Unless you were an officer, in which case congratulations! If you were lucky <em> and </em> brave you could wheedle away something half-decent under your berth for special occasions. Starscream had never hazarded to keep anything in the way of personal comfort in his own quarters--too easily found, too easily used against him, too easily <em> taken away</em>--but sometimes he’d ‘forgotten’ things in Deadlock’s, because Megatron never went into Deadlock’s room and Turmoil couldn’t seem to have been bothered to sort through the piles of guns and bullet caches that littered the assassin’s hab to find anything worth raising Pit over.</p><p>They never toasted to anything either, he and Deadlock. Things like that smacked of <em> hopes </em> and <em> dreams, </em> and Primus knew no one had time for soft-sparked Autobot nonsense like that. When he and Deadlock drank they drank to forget the past and lose themselves in the present, in sublime moments absent of higher thoughts like fear or morality where nothing and no one existed save for them and the quiet dark of the room. They kept the war locked outside and pressed close together, laughing breathlessly as they passed a bottle back and forth, drunk and painless and <em> happy.  </em></p><p>Starscream knew concepts like happiness and painlessness were long behind him.</p><p>Getting drunk, on the other hand... <em> that </em> was a concept he could--and <em> fully </em> intended--to make a reality.</p><p>“Here’s to me,” he muttered, raising his glass. “The most despised person in the universe.”</p><p>With an elegant flourish he brought the glass to his lips, drained it, and reached for the waiting bottle. Another servo met his halfway.</p><p>“Hey there,” a deep voice said right behind him. “Nice wings. Ain’t you Megatron’s old punching bag, or whatever?”</p><p>Starscream closed his fingers around the servo brushing against his and <em> squeezed.  </em></p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Rodimus followed Drift to Swerve’s, keeping impressive pace with the swordmech’s hurried stride.</p><p>“Hey, so, I love to go fast as much as the next guy,” Rodimus piped up beside him as they whipped by mecha loitering in the halls, “but what’s the rush?”</p><p>“He went to the bar,” Drift said, like that explained everything, fully aware it did nothing of the sort.</p><p>“Okay? And, what, you’re worried he’s gonna get jumped or something? C’mon, Megatron only got attacked, like, twice! It’s like Brainstorm says, correlation doesn’t equal--”</p><p>Drift shook his head furiously and quickened his pace. “Megatron is <em> Megatron, </em>this is Starscream!” That also didn’t explain nearly enough, and one side-long glance at his amica proved the speedster was totally lost. Drift grit his teeth and fought to keep his voice calm. “Starscream is at rock bottom right now, and when he’s at rock bottom he self-destructs in stages--he barreled through deprivation, and after deprivation he flips and goes the complete opposite direction.”</p><p>“Oh,” Rodimus said, suddenly much less lost. “So that means--”</p><p>“Satiation,” Drift finished for him. “He’ll overindulge, and it always starts the same.”</p><p>During the war it happened like clockwork. One too many things went wrong and Starscream would shut himself down and everyone else out; then Drift would be forced to barge in and drag him to berth to defrag and the mess to refuel, and the <em> nanoklik </em> the Seeker was semi-functional again he’d go chasing any creature comfort that could distract him from whatever had sent him spiraling in the first place. Since Drift wouldn’t let him starve or seclude himself to numb his ire, he’d fish out some stash of high-grade he’d hidden away for that exact purpose and drink himself all but blind, and if <em> that </em> wasn’t enough to disrupt his cycle, he’d go out looking for something more extreme, or <em> someone. </em> </p><p>If Drift caught him during the drinking stage, he could usually stop it there. Starscream drank because he wanted to feel anything other than what he was feeling before he started, and two million years ago it hadn’t been very hard for the Decepticon named Deadlock to seize a sad, tipsy Seeker by the wing and give him every sensation he was begging for--even better if they drank together, then they <em> both </em> got to drown out whichever voice was screaming louder in their heads than their own and no one got their plating dented or sheared open but them.</p><p>But that was then and this was now, and those methods... were no longer viable.</p><p>Drift raced to Starscream with no guarantee he could do a single thing to help or stop him, and prayed he was wrong.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>To minimize the potential to cause alarm they both slowed to a walk just as the bar’s entrance came into view. Even from down the hall their audials picked up the heavy pulse of steady bass blasting from behind the doors and felt it in their pedes as they approached. </p><p>“Ooh, I love this song,” Rodimus smiled as the double doors slid apart to welcome them. Drift shot him an urgent look that wiped his smile away completely and he fumbled through the entryway. “Sorry, scrap, right--focusing. Screamer shouldn’t be hard to spot.”</p><p>And in a rare show of compassion from the universe, Rodimus was right. Despite traffic flow having picked up since the Seeker’s arrival, Swerve’s wasn’t anywhere near capacity, and over the modest crowd of bots dancing to the music in the middle of the dance floor Drift spotted Starscream at the far corner of the counter. For half a nanoklik the speedster relaxed, because thank <em> Primus </em> he still looked sober, and--<em>oh no.  </em></p><p>He wasn’t alone.</p><p>Drift could hardly believe anyone on <em> The Lost Light </em> would want Starscream’s company after all the Seeker had done, but if <em> Megatron </em> could get hit on at the bar then Drift supposed the Autobots aboard were willing to ignore just about <em> any </em> transgression to get up close and personal with a living legend, regardless of what that legend was for. Starscream was likely the most hated mech on the ship right now, but he was also new, and as Rodimus and so many others in the past had proven, some mecha really did think with their array and not their brain module.</p><p>Mechs like the slate and navy blue grounder on Starscream’s other side, four empty glasses collected at his elbow with a fifth one still full in his hand, and taking up <em> far </em> too much of Starscream’s personal space. There was an entire bar separating them but the flier was broadcasting so plainly on his face what his intentions were that Drift could have guessed what he was thinking from a mile away.</p><p><em>Him. He picked him. </em>Whether the mech schmoozing up to Starscream knew it or not, he was a target living on borrowed time. Drift didn’t think Starscream <em>would</em> murder him--not on purpose, anyway--if only because his position on the ship currently held priority over taking his frustrations out on something with a sparkbeat, but he also wasn’t taking any chances. Mauling somebody within an inch of their life was still grounds for expulsion.</p><p>Steeling himself for another confrontation, Drift pinged Rodimus to keep an optic on them all and made his way around the crowd toward the bar. Several mecha working up a condensation in the throng of frames called out to him in greeting, barely audible over the volume of the music, and Drift mastered his field and face into his usual affable calm and waved back. Tailgate and Rewind tried the hardest to drag his attention towards them and away from the bar, coming close to actually getting a hold of his servo at one point until Riptide’s unpredictable hip gyrations blocked their path.</p><p>Drift vented in relief and soldiered on, sending them both a private comm with a promise for a raincheck, and then suddenly the crowd was far behind and he was at the bar, and there was Starscream, wings canted low and his field <em> oozing </em> with predatory intent that only a drunken moron could mistake for lust, and mistake it he was.</p><p>The grounder was all <em> over </em> Starscream, one arm around his shoulders with an insistent thigh pressing up to the jet’s, intake open and drooling as he attempted to capture an audial with his teeth. Starscream noticed Drift much later than he ought to have, and that was <em> not </em>a good sign.</p><p>“Well <em> hello</em>,” the Seeker purred, wiggling freshly sharpened talons at him. His pose was sultry as he straightened up in his seat and crossed his legs, and that close Drift saw that <em> yes </em> Starscream <em> was </em> drunk, very drunk, actually. “Oh, how terribly rude of me. Have you two met?” The former Air Commander leaned back on the stool with deceptive grace, hanging onto the mech at his side to keep his balance, and the slate and navy grounder laughed, loud and uncouth. Drift didn’t miss the way he used Starscream’s display as an excuse to slide a servo up his waist to grope a turbine fan, or the way Starscream’s smile got infinitesimally tighter. </p><p>“Overtake’s the name,” the grounder said in introduction, “and <em> overtaking </em>is my game.” To punctuate his poetic statement he left off cupping Starscream’s fan to full-on wrap his whole arm around the Seeker’s middle and pull him close. </p><p>Drift watched Starscream shudder, watched his fangs show for a split second--and then Starscream <em> saw </em> Drift watching, and everything about him just <em> melted </em> into Overtake.</p><p>“Mmm. This fine gentlemech was kind enough to offer a lonely newcomer to the ship such as myself some <em> real </em> Autobot hospitality.”</p><p>“Not every day you get a chance to show the second most famous ‘Con in the galaxy what he was missing out on,” Overtake grinned, unrepentantly smarmy. He abandoned his drink so his free hand could snake down behind Starscream and palm his aft, and <em> by god </em> the mech had to be <em> braindead </em> not to notice how Starscream stiffened and his field bristled with hostility.</p><p>Drift clenched his fists so hard his joints ached. Every instinct in his frame was screaming at him to punch that ugly drunk fragger right in the mouth, to keep hitting him until his denta shattered and he <em> choked </em> on them, because Starscream couldn’t make it any more obvious how much he hated being touched like that by some classless four-wheeler and any ‘Con worth his claim wouldn’t just stand there and let it happen.</p><p>Except Drift had abdicated his duty to Starscream, and Starscream <em> knew </em> that. Starscream had <em> ordered </em> it.</p><p><em> This is a game, this is </em> <b> <em>his</em> </b> <em> game. He knew you’d come chasing after him, he’s testing to see what you’ll do. It’s all just a </em> <b> <em>game</em> </b> <em> to him and you’re playing right into it.  </em></p><p>Drift was sick of games, and he was especially sick of Starscream’s games. Two million years of honesty and straightforward discussions like normal mecha had spoiled him--he was too accustomed to just <em> talking </em> now that he couldn’t go back to the scheming and the toying and the <em> games, </em> he couldn’t, he <em> refused.  </em></p><p>“Starscream, <em>stop</em>,” he bit out, and he flared his EM right at the Seeker, making sure he felt every ounce of Drift’s reasons for rushing over in a near-panic. “You wanted my attention? You’ve got it. This doesn’t need to involve anyone but us. If you want to take something out on someone, take it out on me, not him.”</p><p>Briefly stunned by the wave of emotions striking him Starscream only blinked at Drift, until his optics cleared and flattened into furious little slits. His intake opened to reply, just to be cut-off by the fuming grounder still holding him.</p><p>“Hey buddy, I know you used to be a ‘Con or whatever and you’re real good pals with the captain, but would you mind finding your <em> own </em> Seeker and fragging off? I’m trying to get laid here, if you didn’t notice.”</p><p>“If you keep on your current path the only berth you’ll be waking up in is a medical one,” Drift informed him coldly, “and it won’t be because of me.” </p><p>Unless it was. Time would tell.</p><p>Starscream laid a small slim hand atop Overtake’s massive blue arm. The jet’s ruby optics were still narrowed but had begun to lose some of their heat. A fool might have taken that to mean Starscream’s rage was ebbing; Drift was no such fool. Starscream was still <em> quite </em> enraged, and he was also still <em> quite </em> drunk--the edges of his optics flared slightly too bright, his frame sat slightly too heavy, and when he spoke his vocalizer had a syrupy lilt no amount of deliberate maliciousness could quell.</p><p>“Enough talking, <em> ugh</em>, between council meetings and trial proceedings I’ve endured more <em> chit-chat </em> in the last year than I ever hope to endure again. Let me up, before I break your wrist joint.”</p><p>Drift stepped back as Overtake made his only good decision of the night and extracted himself from Starscream. The Seeker slid off his bar stool smoother than oil and landed a breath away from his fellow ex-’Con. Overtake started to follow, until Starscream spread his wings open as wide as they could go, effectively blocking the four-wheeler against the wall and countertop and shielding them both from his view.</p><p>“What are you playing at?” Starscream asked, so soft Drift was forced to bend close to hear him over the song. “I <em> told </em> you, I don’t want you and I don’t <em> need </em>you. Nothing I do now concerns you, so how about you run home to Ratchet?”</p><p>“And what about him?” Drift shot back in a harsh whisper, pointing toward Overtake. “You expect me to just walk away and let you mangle another member of the crew? This isn’t the <em> Nemesis</em>, you can’t go around tearing people apart for fun anymore and get away with it!”</p><p>Starscream’s smile was blindingly brilliant, and his field was <em>nauseating. </em>“Aw, Drift. I don’t know which part of your ignorance is cuter: the part where you think Overtake is unaware of my intentions, or the part where you think I got away with <em>everything</em> on that ship.”</p><p>One of his servos rose to Drift’s helm and caressed it in a way that bordered on the sensual, and between that and the Seeker’s words Drift’s fists started to unclench.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Starscream rolled his optics and shoved Drift’s head away, looking bored and disgusted. “Primus, do the Autobots use the brain module as the base component for their badges? They must, I’m fairly sure you weren’t <em> this </em> dense before.” He snapped his fingers at the same time he folded his wings down and gestured for Overtake to come around again. The grounder grinned lasciviously and did so with gusto, snagging Starscream by the waist once more and tugging him flush against his frame, either blissfully unaware or gleefully ignoring the way the flier in his grip convulsed with revulsion.</p><p>“Overtake, tell the nice mech what you told me when you bought my second round of drinks.”</p><p>“Gladly,” the four-wheeler smirked. One of the Seeker’s wings in each palm, he said, “I told his <em> majesty </em> here what I heard him say to Swerve, about killing more people with his right hand than he’d ever met or some crud like that. Asked him what <em> else </em> he could do with that hand, and he offered to show me, <em> if </em> I didn't mind some pain.”</p><p>Drift looked at the both of them, unsure of what he was hearing. “You do realize he wasn’t offering to interface with you, correct? He’s <em> threatening </em> you.”</p><p>“Pfft, obviously,” Overtake glared. “That’s what makes it fun.”</p><p>“He gets what he wants, I get what I want,” Starscream explained, sugary sweet with murder in his optics. “Just two full grown mechs consenting to an enchanted evening alone in the privacy of a berthroom, and all that entails. So you see, you have <em> no one </em> to worry about.” His smile curled into a sneer. “Should be business as usual for you, hmm?”</p><p>Drift <em> really </em> wished he had Starscream’s private comm-link code. There were about a million things he wanted to shout in the Seeker’s face, none of which would be appropriate to do in the middle of the bar in front of so many people. So many people that Drift had just now noticed were watching them, while attempting and failing to look inconspicuous about it. It wasn’t just Rodimus’ optics upon them any longer: the whole bar was staring at them.</p><p>Starscream was trying to goad him into making a spectacle. Drift hadn’t realized how close he’d come to doing it.</p><p><em> Don’t kill him, even if he deserves it, </em> he wanted to say to Starscream. <em> Don’t hurt him, even when he asks you to, </em>he wanted to tell Overtake. Neither left his mouth. Overtake wouldn’t care, and Starscream wouldn’t listen, so there was no point.</p><p>Wondering why he bothered, or if Starscream would even <em> have </em> the mental capacity to retain information with how drunk he was now paired with the massive hangover he would no doubt be coming out of recharge with later--Drift had smelled the mercury on Starscream’s breath, and mercury meant one <em> scrap </em> of a helmache in the morning--Drift gave him <em> his </em> comm-link code, told him to enjoy his night, and stalked off to go find Rodimus.</p><p>He chanced one glance over his shoulder as he walked away and saw Starscream was staring silently after him, and something about the look in his eyes almost had Drift wheeling around to run and save him right then and there.</p><p><em> Is it part of the game? Does he want me to try, or does he just want to </em> <b> <em>watch</em> </b> <em> me try?  </em></p><p>It was impossible to tell, impossible to ask. Demanding Starscream of all mecha to be honest for once was like demanding a monoformer take on an altmode: it wasn’t going to happen. The Seeker said one thing and meant another, it was his nature, and acting like he hated Drift while begging him with his optics to intervene and then getting furious when he did was a game more complex than the speedster was willing to play.</p><p>Drift’s spark turned luridly in his chest, and although he faced away and continued on, he had the sinking feeling he’d just made another fatal misstep.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>[<em> I’m going to wait for Ratchet in his office. Can you keep an eye on Starscream for me? I’d stay and do it myself, but-- </em>]</p><p>[<em> Yeah, I saw how things went. I got this, buddy. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Thank you, Rodimus. I mean it. I owe you one. </em>]</p><p>[<em> No problem. You can make it up to me later by telling me the rest of the nasty stuff the ‘Cons used to say about my paint job. </em>]</p><p>[<em> You have my solemn vow as a servant of Primus, I’ll tell you everything you want to know, and everything you don’t. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Heh, </em> <b> <em>awesome</em> </b> <em> . Tell Ratch I said hi. </em>]</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Inside Ratchet’s office it was quiet. Reinforced medbay walls muffled and cushioned incoming and outgoing sounds alike, and with the door closed it was quieter still.</p><p>The inside was dimly lit, lights kept low like Ratchet did for patients after hours, warm and crowded with boxes of case logs and research files. Only the desk chair and the spare berth in the corner were free of stacks of datapads or medical supplies, and the whole room carried the distinct scent of hospital grade cleanser and joint oil.</p><p>After New Crystal City, it was the only place in all the world Drift found real tranquility.</p><p>He shed his swords at the foot of the berth, well within grabbing distance should need for them arise, and fell upon the recharge slab in a strutless heap.</p><p><em> This is a mess, </em> he thought, optics shuttering off with a click. <em> And what a mess it is.  </em></p><p>Things involving Starscream always were. Drift didn’t know what protocol drove the Seeker to complicate his and everyone else’s lives with such abandon, but by god did it have a hold over him. Nothing with Starscream had ever been simple, even when he was predictable, even when his behavior <em> did </em> fall into a pattern Drift could predict, because something about any routine outside of well-rehearsed aerial attack formations or getting ‘faced through the wall on the nightly seemed to offend Starscream personally. Especially if he <em> knew </em> he was being predictable. The Seeker’s own schemes could hinge on his moves being accurately anticipated and he’d <em> still </em>be mad someone guessed correctly.</p><p>Drift used to like that about him, he thought. It had been… endearing. </p><p>The ex-assassin had to make a conscious effort not to dwell on any other of Starscream’s less detestable qualities--he didn’t want to think of that in Ratchet’s berth, didn’t want to think of <em> him</em>; not with his olfactory senses full of Ratchet’s smell, his frame resting on Ratchet’s side of the slab, and the medic’s warm authoritative voice filtering in from the other side of door, talking to First Aid. Drift couldn’t hear them well enough to understand what they were discussing, but he knew he probably wouldn’t get it anyway, so the words became a comforting white noise to his audials and he let his systems slowly cycle down to defrag.</p><p>A soft hiss and click brought him back online some time later, and the familiarity of the sounds were all that kept him from leaping up for his weapons. His optics powered on until he could read his HUD, and his chronometer informed him he’d been asleep about three hours.</p><p>Drift sat up, blinking sleepily. “Ratchet?”</p><p>“Right here, kid.” They’d been together a good while now, but some habits died harder than others--if Ratchet had to wake Drift when the ex-’Con was alone, he did it from a distance with plenty of noise to make his presence known and stayed out of slicing range even though Drift hadn’t swung on him in years.</p><p>“Day shift over?” the speedster asked, bleary-optic’d.</p><p>“Yup. I brought the engex.” Ratchet’s voice was gentle. “You feel ready to talk?”</p><p>“Not even a little,” Drift laughed, feeling tired and lost. “But this is something you deserve to know. Something you need to hear from me this time, not him.” A sigh left his lips. “I should never have tried to keep it from you. I’m sorry, Ratch.”</p><p>“Don’t be,” his bondmate assured him. Ratchet came to meet him at the berth and sat beside him, engex forgotten by Drift’s swords. “This is probably a secret you expected to take with you to the Allspark, right? I don’t blame you for wanting to keep it that way.”</p><p>“You should,” Drift muttered, burying his faceplate against Ratchet’s shoulder. “I do.”</p><p>Ratchet stroked his helm finials. “It’s a good thing I’m a doctor then, and not a judge, jury, or executioner. I’m not here to put you on trial, Drift.”</p><p>“You’re too good to me, Ratch.”</p><p>“No such thing, kid. No such thing.” Ratchet wrapped Drift up in his arms and pressed a chaste kiss to the top of his helm. “Let me grab that engex, and let’s get this done with. How about that?”</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Two glasses of the finely filtered neon fuel were poured, and after settling with their backs cushioned against the wall, side-by-side, Drift took a sip of liquid courage, and began.</p><p>It came out in broken pieces first, rough and unconnected. He tried to start at the beginning of it all, the very beginning, and halfway through his own memories Drift found the files were all either lost or corrupted--blacked out and destroyed by his own hand, eons ago. Enough remained for Drift to remember he’d done it to move on from Gasket, to harden his spark and put a stop to the memory fluxes that woke him in the night, reaching for someone that wasn’t there.</p><p>Those things weren’t what he’d come to tell Ratchet anyway, so he shunted the mess of glitching files to the wayside and reached for something clear and solid.</p><p>
  <em> The showers. That night in the wash rack. Starscream, all alone.  </em>
</p><p>For two Decepticons that would go on to claim the other, that was the origin of their inevitable union. The chance meeting in the dark was where it all started--it was the striking of the match for all they’d go on to burn together: planets, cities, people, and each other.</p><p>So Drift told Ratchet of it, his gaze fixed pointedly at his drink, never straying past the lip of the glass. He told Ratchet of returning to the <em> Nemesis </em> close to dawn when the war was still in its infancy and Decepticon victories were plentiful; told Ratchet how his infiltration mission had been a roaring success and he’d come back to base pleasantly sore and coated in Autobot fuel. How he’d been too tired and too lazy to walk all the way to his own room with its private wash rack. How he’d gone into the communal showers instead to rinse off.</p><p>How he’d stepped inside and seen Starscream puking his guts out under a boiling spray of cleanser, and how just when he thought there could be nothing left in the Seeker to purge Starscream had forced his own hand down his throat until he made himself puke again.</p><p>And again.</p><p>And <em> again.  </em></p><p>“Poison?” Ratchet asked.</p><p>“In a way,” Drift said. </p><p>What Starscream purged into the drain wasn’t fuel, poisoned or otherwise. No energon, no additives, nothing. What spilled out of the Air Commander’s mouth and onto the floor was unmistakable, even as the flow of solvent tried to wash it away.</p><p>Ratchet’s mouth slanted into frown. “Transfluid.” Drift nodded and drank until his glass was empty and then refilled it without pause.</p><p>“When he finally noticed me standing there his head snapped up to look at me, and--and it was only for a second, he hid it so well, but I <em> saw </em> it. I saw the fear in his optics, the shame and the humiliation, and I… I recognized it.”</p><p>The strong steady weight of Ratchet’s hand came to rest on Drift’s arm, and he leaned into it.</p><p>“Because of the Dead End?”</p><p>Drift nodded again mechanically and shut his eyes. “I saw myself in him, for a fraction of a second. I thought he’d kill me for it, witnessing that level of weakness. Anyone else would have used it against him, turned it into blackmail to buy his silence or taken advantage. A few vorns later in the war and I probably would have, too. But he didn’t try to kill me.”</p><p>“Why didn’t he?”</p><p>Drift took a long vent, in and out. “I asked myself that, until I remembered he was there the day I was recruited. He saw the slums of Polyhex, the Dead End. There isn’t a mech alive that doesn’t know what went on there, and he knew that’s where I came from. I think, when I was seeing myself in him that day in the showers, he saw himself in me, looking right back. Kindred spirits, in the worst possible way.”</p><p>Ratchet’s hand reached for his, and Drift grabbed hold, tight.</p><p>His pace for the rest of the story was faltering and slow, but he managed to tell it, bit by bit.</p><p>Drift explained how he and Starscream had inexplicably gravitated to each other after that bizarre and unsettling encounter in the showers. How Starscream had claimed it was to keep an eye on Drift, to subtly threaten him into keeping his intake shut and remind the assassin all the ways he’d make his life a living hell if he so much as <em> whispered </em> what he’d seen to anyone else, and how Drift had thrown caution to the wind and gotten right up in Starscream’s face to say that since he <em> hadn’t </em> told anyone and never would, what was the Seeker going to do to his life instead? What could he threaten Drift with, then?</p><p>A <em>good</em> <em>time,</em> it turned out.</p><p>And like some cheap, trope-heavy, ten shanix vendor stand erotica, everything unfolded from there in a hilariously predictable fashion. Suddenly they were fragbuddies, no strings attached lovers, falling into berth in secret every night they could get away with it all while maintaining a perfect dispassionate veneer in front of everyone else.</p><p>He told Ratchet how it might have stayed that way forever, had he not walked into his quarters one night a half a million years into the war and found Starscream purging over the drain again. </p><p>Deadlock hadn’t asked Starscream any questions about what led him to agonizingly vomit in the wash racks the first time. He hadn’t <em> cared </em> the first time. They hadn’t been fragging for decivorns the first time, or sharing a recharge slab the nights one of them was too worn out to go back to their own room, or made the other burst into laughter at the suggestion of awarding a prize to the first sharpshooter to hit Optimus Prime in the codpiece and live to tell about it. </p><p>Seen to wounds neither deemed severe enough to see Hook for. Snuck the other a bottle of high-grade. Elbowed one awake when a memory flux made the other thrash during recharge.</p><p>Watched the other suffer a ‘reprimand’ at the hands of their superior officer until it knocked them offline. Again.</p><p>And again, and again, and again.</p><p>Drift told Ratchet that the second time he caught Starscream retching transfluid into a drain he snatched him by the wrists and didn’t just ask what was going on--he’d <em> demanded </em>it.</p><p>“I told him I wanted to know whose entrails were about to get gut-fucked for doing this to him, and he… he was crying, but he was laughing, too. It was like he couldn’t figure out which one was right, so he sat there in my shower with some other mech’s fluids on his chin and tears in his eyes while he giggled and shook so hard his wings rattled.” Drift took a long sip of his engex and finally turned to look at Ratchet proper. “I’m sure you can guess better than I did back then what was going on.”</p><p>The medic let out a tense vent. “Megatron.”</p><p>“Megatron. Yeah. I’d just threatened to gut-fuck <em> Megatron, </em> for Starscream. He told me if Overlord couldn’t kill our <em> glorious leader, </em> what hope did I have? Did <em> any </em> of us have?” Drift’s expression grew distant and solemn. “That was the only time I ever heard him admit he might not be strong enough. He looked so… hopeless. I held his wrists and stared down at him with this dawning realization that even though this was only my second time seeing him do this, it had been happening the entire time we’d been at war. Half a million years of it.”</p><p>
  <em>And another two million after I left.</em>
</p><p>“His trine didn’t help?”</p><p>Drift shook his head. “I’ve never been certain. He never told me what he told them, about any of it. All I know is he had a choice of where to go after Megatron was through with him, and he didn’t go to them. Something about what we had, or maybe what he saw reflected back at him that first night--he picked me. It reminded me so much of Gasket, like the universe was giving me a chance to… I don’t know, try making things right? So I pulled him out of the shower and into my arms, and from then on there was no going back.”</p><p>It took all of the remaining engex, but Drift told Ratchet the rest of the story. How he held Starscream under the cascading waves of cleanser and the Seeker clung to him so tight. How after, lying entwined on the berth, Starscream had lowered his vocoder to a hiss and told him everything Megatron had done to him since he’d first pledged his ‘allegiance undying’, and all the ways Starscream had tricked Megatron into thinking his Air Commander liked it, <em> loved it </em> even, because so long as the revolutionary's lust was focused solely on his SIC there’d be no reason for him to pursue another of Starscream’s Seekers to satiate his fetish for wings and heel-thrusters.</p><p>He told Ratchet how seeing Starscream purposely maneuver his body between Megatron and any given Seeker and play it off as jealousy or narcissism, no matter their leader’s mood or intentions, was the deciding factor that drove him to later shove the jet against a wall and press his mouth to the bundle of cables at his throat and beg to sink in his teeth.</p><p>“Can I--?”</p><p>“Primus, <em> yes</em>.”</p><p>They’d both known it was a death wish.</p><p>It was Starscream who ripped his plating away and wrapped a leg around Deadlock’s hips, and it was Deadlock who crushed Starscream’s body with the weight of his own and buried his fangs ‘til he hit bone.</p><p>“I claimed him,” Drift ended with. “And after, I let him claim me. We made a promise. All those prophetic visions I was sent, and not even I could have seen it coming that <em> Starscream </em> would be the only one to keep it.”</p><p>Ratchet’s brows knit in confusion. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“I defected, Ratch. I swore to always watch his back, and I <em> abandoned </em> him. I ran off to start life anew with a clean slate, and I had no idea, that--that he was still <em> protecting </em> me. He kept me off the List, Ratchet, all the way up to the war’s end. I thought I was lucky in staying below their radar, or too many high priority targets kept me unimportant enough to ignore, but--” Drift swallowed thickly, “but no, it was <em> him. </em>Doing anything and everything Megatron asked, just to buy me a little more time.”</p><p>He thought of Starscream’s face in the bar, watching him go, and the way he’d collapsed into Drift’s gentle touch in his hab-suite, running on nothing but fumes and spite. He thought of how Starscream had curled on his side on the floor in Drift’s room the day he joined the crew, covered in thousands of refractions of brightly colored light from the crystals on the ceiling and smiled like the sun at Drift, radiant and broken and wholesparkedly <em> his.  </em></p><p>A weak groan escaped the speedster as he dropped his face into his hands, drink forgotten.</p><p>“I messed up, Ratch. I messed up <em> bad, </em> and I have no idea how to fix it.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>you ever just give a gay robot all your old maladaptive coping mechanisms</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Amortize</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>What did YOU expect, really?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I re-wrote this chapter three different times with three different events/tones, and this is the one I ended up liking enough to keep please take it AWAY from me</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Starscream came to in a puddle of fuel and fluids with a processor ache that felt like someone had cleaved his helm in half. It was a pain the jet was familiar with. Intimately.</p><p>
  <em> An enchanted evening, indeed.  </em>
</p><p>Somewhere a million miles away and simultaneously right beside him, someone was making throaty groans of pain the Seeker didn’t appreciate at <em> all</em>, because every single pitch of whatever the mech beside him was trying to say reverberated around in his skull like ricocheting plasma fire.</p><p>“Shut <em> up</em>,” Starscream seethed, then winced at his voice. “Or I’ll finish what I started.” Every word was a molten nail in the module, hammering away right at his brain’s core; he took his own threat’s advice before he’d finished his sentence and slammed his mouth shut.</p><p>It took a minute for him to unglue his eyelids and shutter his optics open, but when he did he understood immediately why he was lying prone in a half-and-half mix of bled and regurgitated energon with a splitting head and an aching valve.</p><p>Overtake, Starscream’s <em> charming </em> suitor from the bar, was curled up in a loose fetal position, still moaning weakly and looking more like he’d gone for a dive in Helex’s grinder than interfaced with a Seeker. Shredded from the chassis down he had bare circuitry and torn wires showing through his plating, and busted seams clearly dug apart by very persistent, very <em> sharp </em> claws. One of his bright blue optics flickered to life, while the other remained intact yet totally dark.</p><p><em> Looks like I had fun, </em> Starscream mused darkly. He tried to sit up and a sharp, hot sting made itself known deep in his valve. He cast a poisonous glare at Overtake. <em> Looks like you did, too.  </em></p><p>Given time to boot up, his HUD sprung to life and gave his hungover processor no quarter, assaulting him with updates, notifications, and reminders--the agony inducing flashes of blinding blue and red lettering buzzed around him like angry cyberflies, and he eradicated them just as mercilessly. Starscream didn’t care about his fuel levels or his frame’s damage status, he cared about a scalding hot solvent shower to rinse off the smell of grounder and ozone, and going back to his own hab-suite to defrag the rest of the cycle.</p><p>There was one blinking notification at the corner of his HUD Starscream couldn’t dismiss for some reason, and once begrudgingly opened he saw why:</p><p>&lt;<b>RIVET DUTY 0600 Joors</b>&gt;</p><p><em> So much for that defrag. </em>Starscream ignored the pain his body roared at him, old and new alike, and dragged himself off the filth-ridden berth and onto his pedes. Standing made the burn in his valve worse, but even in a fresh frame that was a pain Starscream had more practice living with than any other, and when he walked to the door he stepped smoothly, as if the sting weren’t there at all.</p><p>Checking his chronometer showed him he <em> did </em> have enough time to rinse all the evidence of his exhilarating little tryst off, though he briefly considered leaving every stain and smear where it was--the looks he’d receive from all those prudish, holier-than-thou Autobots would no doubt have been truly something to see. </p><p><em> Fodder for their rumor mill for vorns to come, I’d wager, </em> he smirked. <em> Among other things. </em> Starscream had been sauced out of his mind for most of the night and his perception of things got a bit fuzzy there toward the end of the third bottle, but even so, he hadn’t missed any of the hungry looks he’d gotten while getting his wings felt up at the bar; no one here liked him, but almost <em> everyone </em> wanted to frag him, and if being surrounded by mecha that longed to hate-fuck him wasn’t the story of Starscream’s life, he didn’t know what was. Helm still pounding, he pictured the reactions of 200 some-odd mechs seeing one of the last Seekers still living walking the halls of their ship with sticky thighs and dents in his aft, and laughed until his skull screamed.</p><p>“Nnnghhh,” Overtake mumbled, taking his turn to protest any and all noise louder than half a decibel.</p><p>“Oh, you’re alive. That’s good, I suppose.”</p><p>“I don’t f-feel alive… Primus, did you f-frag me or filet me?”</p><p>Starscream checked to make sure his panel was closed before he opened the door and accidentally gave people something to <em> really </em> talk about. “You’re the one who wanted to see what my right hand could do. I obliged you. And I didn’t frag you, <em> you </em> fragged <em> me. </em>All I did was make sure I got something out of it.”</p><p>Overtake peeled his face off his slab. Congealed fuel clung to his cheek and brow in mottled chunks. “What’s the difference? I don’t… don’t g-get it.”</p><p>“No, no you wouldn’t,” Starscream said, taking two tries to key the door open. Somehow he managed to make it look calculated and regal. “Your type never does.” Finally it flew open, and the fresher air of the hallway ventilated sweetly in comparison to Overtake’s stale reek. Starscream threw him a last look over his shoulder. “I had fun. If you ever want a refresher in what it’s like to be someone’s <em> punching bag, </em> you know where to find me.”</p><p>The showers were at the far end of the hall. Just as the door slid shut Starscream heard Overtake muffle a furious string of curses, and the dull <em> thud </em> of a head hitting the berth, punctuated by another long, pained groan that ended with something sounding suspiciously similar to ‘best frag of my life’.</p><p>Eventually the grounder would get up and haul himself to the medbay, and <em> oh </em> how Starscream longed to see the look on Ratchet’s face when he saw the <em> completely consensual </em> mess he’d spend his entire morning fixing. The idea alone put some pep in the Seeker’s step, and he smiled through the searing itch in his array as he strode to wash up and begin the solarcycle.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Drift, manufactured into an early riser by both the Circle of Light and a CMO conjunx, powered up out of recharge not too long after Starscream.</p><p>Under the berth covers Ratchet was still in the grip of a powerful defrag, wadded up on his side with a pillow between his knees and his engines idling in a gentle snore. Drift sat up beside him, legs to his chest, and fondly watched him recharge as he waited for all his systems to come online and start warming up. During his days as an assassin his entire database could reboot straight out of defrag in less than a nanoklik, but the end of the war had given Drift the luxury of slow morning loading sessions and he chose to savor each one for the gift it was.</p><p>It was good to be alive. Good to be here. Good to be safe and warm and fueled and in decent repair. </p><p>Good to be with Ratchet. The speedster stroked an errant hand over the medic’s back and smiled at the mumble he got in response.</p><p>Drift felt… better? Or, if he were honest, he didn’t feel <em> worse </em>. Guilt ate at his spark despite his confession because even though it assuaged him, it did nothing to improve Starscream’s present situation.</p><p>Starscream, who he had left drunk in the lap of some <em> asshole.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Frag, the bar! </em>
</p><p>His messages were open and scrolling across his HUD in an instant--there were a hundred at a <em> conservative </em> estimate, 99% sent by Rodimus and one from Ultra Magnus with the week’s duty roster. Drift skimmed through them in batches, picking up the gist of whatever was going on in the bar when Roddy sent it: <em> Screamer’s had a lot of drinks, yeesh this Overtake guy likes heeled pedes, oh SICK I didn’t know Tailgate could do the splits, Drift these two are really flying high you want me to step in, they’re leaving now heading back to his room I think, oh frag Screamer just winked at me, what does that mean Drift, what doES THAT MEAN??? </em></p><p>Silent as death, Drift took advantage of his specialized stealth training to slip off the berth and out the side exit of his bondmate’s office. He wanted a shower before he replied to <em> anything</em>--drinking too much and going right into recharge always made him feel <em> greasy </em> the next cycle--and while the medbay had plenty he didn’t want to risk waking Ratchet. Primus knew the mech could use the rest.</p><p>Drift left his swords with his conjunx and made his way to the elevator that would ferry him to the hab-suite level where the communal showers were located. This early in the cycle he didn’t expect to see many others there, save perhaps whichever unlucky mecha might be getting off third shift, but after he’d left his weapons unattended the first time during a rinse only to come out looking for his towel to instead find Whirl attempting to dual-wield them--with surprising skill, astonishingly--Drift never endeavored to make the same mistake again.</p><p>With the D.J.D. certifiably snuffed, there wasn’t much the ex-’Con feared he might have to do battle with that his bare servos couldn’t handle. In fact, after baring his spark to Ratchet the night before and getting all his truths out into the open, Drift felt <em> cleansed. </em>So long as he stayed out of Starscream’s way until he could figure out how to help him, Drift would be fine.</p><p>Then he walked into the showers and saw Starscream under the cleanser spray, purging his guts out, right into the drain.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Said puking Seeker got his internals wrestled under control again, right on time to lift his throbbing helm and see Drift standing in the entryway staring at him like he’d seen a ghost. Or, well, how Starscream <em> thought </em> a person might look seeing a ghost. Hard to believe as it was, he hadn’t had a mirror handy the first time dearly departed Bumblebee showed up to start guilt-tripping him from beyond the Well.</p><p>Starscream hocked a wad of partially processed mercury onto the tile floor, and wiped his mouth. “Drift. Isn’t this a familiar picture. Anyone else getting flashbacks, or is it just me?” Drift, frozen stock still and visibly caught between confusion and fury, looked to be on the verge of purging himself.</p><p>“Starscream! Are you alright? Did--Did <em> he </em> make you--?!”</p><p>“Oh simmer down,” Starscream sighed, too tired and too nauseous to enjoy keeping Drift in suspense, as entertaining and vindictively satisfying as that would be. “I wasn’t <em> raped</em>, you aft, I’m hungover.” An errant claw pointed at the swirling solvent collecting on the floor. “I drank nine Pretty Poisons on half a tank after running empty for two weeks.” Starscream’s face twisted. “Excuse me.”</p><p>Forever elegant, he bent neatly at the waist and purged again. Sparkling chrome engex splashed all over his pedes, with traces of hot pink mixed in, just for color. Starscream gagged through another wave, but it was only a dry heave. His processor was a constant excruciating <em> ache </em> that he couldn’t escape, and the addition of any subsequent bodily functions exacerbated it, <em> especially </em> roiling tank purges. A low keen grated out of his vocalizer that he just didn’t have the energy to hold in.</p><p>He ought to be mortified, he knew. If anyone else saw him like this he would be, without question. For Drift though, seeing the former Decepticon Air Commander hurl various fluids onto himself was old news, a charming view Starscream had treated him to hundreds of times during the war, once his washrack <em> secret </em> wasn’t so secret anymore. It didn’t matter if Drift saw.</p><p><em> Could do without the commentary, </em> he seethed at his own voicebox. <em> Keep it to yourself. Traitor.  </em></p><p>Starscream coughed up what was left clogging his intake tubing and spat it away with finality. Soaked to the protoform and beaded with droplets of solvent the jet held his hands apart, as if he were welcoming Drift to his own washrack instead of the entire ship’s.</p><p>“So, I don’t know about you, but I had a <em> great </em> night. I hope you and Hatchet didn’t stay up <em> too late, </em>old bots get cranky without their recharge, you know.”</p><p>“We talked about you, actually,” Drift said. The swordsmech crossed his arms and leaned on the stall’s divider wall. </p><p>“Me?” Starscream’s brow ridges piqued in real interest. “My favorite subject. Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess.” Hips canted, one finger pressed to his bottom lip, Starscream looked the speedster up and down. “Judging by all that guilt in your field and the way your abdominal plating is flared… ah! You told him about us.” The Seeker’s ruby optics curved into happy, malicious little crescents. “The <em> real </em>us. How exciting! How did he take it? Did he go all to pieces? Tell me everything.”</p><p>Talking kept pounding red hot pokers into Starscream’s brain. He chatted anyway; in a joor he’d be getting outfitted to go spend the rest of the cycle tightening bolts and replacing rusty rivets in the icy void of space, and Pit take him he was getting <em> some </em> enjoyment to tide him over, helmache be damned.</p><p>Drift inhaled sharply through his nasal vent and let it out slow. A classic ‘Deadlock’ tell of a rising temper. The kind of temper so easily nudged into violence; Starscream wondered how far he’d have to go to get Drift to attack him, and if a massively bloody brawl was worth getting kicked off the ship for. <em> Hmm, later, perhaps. </em>If he was going to goad Drift into a deathmatch he’d prefer to start it painless and mostly sober.</p><p>“I gave it all to him,” Drift replied, outwardly serene as a cloudless sky. There was a storm brewing not far off though, Starscream could feel it. “All I had to tell. About you and I. How we met, what brought us together. <em>Why</em> it brought us together. I told him about what went on with you and… Megatron.”</p><p>Suddenly the solvent didn’t feel so warm anymore. The energon in Starscream’s lines went frigid.</p><p>“What?” Starscream heard himself ask. “You told him <em> what</em>?”</p><p>“I told him everything, beginning to end, about how and why we claimed each other. What took place between you and Megatron was a deciding factor in that. If he hadn’t been hurting you like he was, I might not have--”</p><p>Starscream had Drift against the wall and his claws around his throat a full minute before his brain caught up with him and figured out he was no longer under the spray, but was very much in fact attempting to remove the ex-’Con’s head from his traitorous shoulders.</p><p>So much for starting a deathmatch painless and sober. </p><p>“Might not have <em> what</em>?!” Starscream hissed, grimacing at the <em> unreal </em> level of pain welling up inside his skull. “Might not have wanted me? <em> Fragged </em> me? Deadlock only likes them broken down, easy to <em> pick up </em> when they fall?!” His fangs were millimetres from Drift’s mouth, and for an insane second Starscream didn’t know if he was going to kiss him or tear his lip plates off. Meanwhile his servos kept up an iron vice--if the flier ever let go all Drift’s energon lines and tension cables were going to be kinked and bent to the Pit.</p><p>“Might not have needed to <em> protect </em> you!” Drift spat static; his vocoder was too compressed to modulate. Trapped in the middle of ten razors with a vendetta, static was the best his voice box could do.</p><p>Sound and noise were thunder, exploding behind Starscream’s optics. He grit his teeth and bore it. “What?” he asked again, his hold on Drift’s neck loosening an iota.</p><p>“You could take care of yourself,” the former assassin wheezed, straining to be heard over the still running shower not four feet away. “Like you said back in your room, you always have. You’re doing a--a fair job of it, as we speak.” The corner of his mouth crooked upward, a shadow of a grin that showed the tip of a single sharpened denta. “You didn’t need my help. I didn’t think you’d want it even if you <em> did </em> need my help. But then when <em> he </em> did what he did to you, afterward you came to <em> me.</em>” Drift eyes were cool and watery, and impossibly soft. “Like I told you, I never set out to claim you from the start. I didn’t chase after you. I didn’t have to.”</p><p>Starscream’s hands sedately fell away from the speedster’s neck. His wide optic’d gaze pinned him just as effectively.</p><p><em> Shut up, </em>he told Drift inside his pounding head. Thinking it hurt just as much as saying it.</p><p>
  <em> Shut. Up. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up shutupshutupshutup!!!  </em>
</p><p>Starscream threw Drift as hard as possible to the tile floor, as far from himself as he could possibly throw. The strut-clattering cacophony of metal on metal was the final nail in the coffin: Starscream clutched at his helm, his intake open in a silent cry of agony, and sat as slowly and carefully as his size allowed. Primus, he’d forgotten how <em> stupid </em> his anger made him.</p><p>
  <em> Mistake, that--that was a mistake. </em>
</p><p>It was all a mistake, from beginning to end. And Starscream was including himself in that, as well as Cybertron and the whole damn war.</p><p>Laid out across the floor, Drift rolled partially upright and rubbed at the shoulder that broke his fall. “Starscream--!”</p><p>“No!” </p><p>Starscream didn’t let go of his head or open his eyes. Everything was too loud, too bright, too much. Distantly he was aware of the lingering burn from the tear in his valve making a valiant effort to be felt over the gargantuan crack split clean through his module, and only then did Starscream remember he hadn’t rinsed out his hardware yet. Pissed and past the point of caring about anything in that moment, least of all <em> Drift, </em> Starscream powered his optics up, heaved himself back to his feet, marched right under the spray of solvent, popped his valve cover open, and shoved two fingers inside. The burn intensified tenfold instantaneously, making the Seeker bite his tongue to hold in the choked hiss of pain his mouth wanted very badly for the world to hear.</p><p><em> Clumsy brute, </em> he cursed. <em> Is there a single ground-pounder living that knows how to handle new equipment?! </em>Starscream hadn’t interfaced with anyone since his reformat--or the end of the war if he were being honest, and he wasn’t--and Overtake had gladly done to the Seeker’s sensitive internals what Starscream had done to every inch of the four-wheeler's tacky armor.</p><p>It felt like he was trying to frag himself raw with battery acid, and the tremors racking his servo weren’t helping. Once or twice his own claws caught the ragged edge of ripped mesh inside him and the shock of how <em> vivid </em> the pain was sent him spasming each time. Drift stood in a rush and made as if to reach for him, face and field shamefully bare with concern and alarm, and Starscream seriously considered risking his brain’s structural integrity just to throw him against the wall again.</p><p>“You just couldn’t keep it to yourself,” Starscream spat at Drift, pulling the hand from his valve to point a shivering, accusing digit at the swordsmech. An incriminating mix of Overtake’s transfluid and cleanser sluiced down the inside of Starscream’s formerly pristine white thighs. Drift followed its path down the flier’s leg all the way to drain, only to snap his gaze back up at the sound of Starscream’s array cover clicking shut. The Seeker splashed a haphazard palmful of solvent up between his legs to wash the remaining evidence away and advanced on Drift again, wings so high they blocked the lights from the ceiling and cast Starscream’s already dark face in shadow. “You just <em> had </em> to tell <em> someone, </em> didn’t you?”</p><p>“Not someone,” Drift insisted, “Ratchet. I can’t keep lying to him. If I was going to be honest with him, I had to explain my reasoning, and I’m sorry, but that included Megatron.”</p><p><em> Everything always does, </em> Starscream fumed internally. <em> Was it so much to ask for one thing in my life to have </em> <b> <em>nothing</em> </b> <em> to do with </em> <b> <em>Megatron</em></b><em>?  </em></p><p>“You’re sorry,” Starscream muttered, as unimpressed as the last time Drift told him so. “Well <em> I’m </em> sorry, but as you were previously informed, I don’t want your apologies. What I do want is to know if my <em> trauma </em> really is my only redeeming quality, since as you’ve admitted, it was the <em> only reason </em> you put this hideous slagging scar on me!”</p><p>“That’s not the sole reason,” Drift swore, hands held open in surrender. “It was part of my deciding factor, but it wasn’t the sole reason.”</p><p>“And I find that thought <em> soooo </em> comforting, truly I do,” Starscream sneered. The background roar of the shower was starting to lead into a crescendo of sound his audials couldn’t bear; he turned and punched the controls off, then rounded on Drift, optics blazing. “So reassuring to know I was only <em> worthy </em> to be claimed once I became a charity case! Primus knows there wasn’t any other single <em> good </em> thing about me, was there? I wasn’t <em> good enough </em> for you to keep around long term, until you found out I was a frag-toy that couldn’t say no? Was that it? Can’t put a mark on something that doesn’t remind you of <em> home </em> first?”</p><p>Drift's ventilations caught. A quick flash of anger washed through his EM as his optics narrowed. “Stop trying to twist my words, you know perfectly well that’s not how it was.”</p><p>“Do I?!” Starscream snarled, and <em> god </em> did he want to thrust his talons through the speedster’s chest and tear out his spark, tear it out and throw it on the ground and <em> step on it. </em> “Then indulge me, <em> Deadlock, </em> what else was there to claim me <em> for? </em> I mean, seriously, do you even <em> like </em> me? Or did you just <em> pity </em> me?”</p><p>“Of course I liked you!” Drift fired back, irritability tinting his field. It barely hid his concern. “I wouldn’t have tried to protect you if I didn’t!”</p><p>“Then why?!” Stricken, suddenly desperate, Starscream was practically begging. The throbbing in his helm had reached its peak and he couldn’t take one more nanoklik of this--he felt like he was going to explode. “If it wasn’t because I was damaged goods, then what <em> was </em> it?!” He searched Drift’s face for answers, and asked, much more quietly, “And why wasn’t it <em> enough</em>?”</p><p>Drift worked his jaw uselessly, unable to speak. The truth was somewhere in his mouth but he couldn’t seem to let it out; the answer was in his optics, clear as a bruise on white derma, and the reality of what Drift had inadvertently revealed--what was finally sinking in through the metaphorical machete splitting the Seeker’s head--left Starscream privately reeling.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Liked’.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Past-tense.  </em>
</p><p>The conversation from Starscream’s hab-suite the day before came back to haunt him. Drift had spoken of the Decepticons having lost their way as the driving force behind his choice to defect, and, well, hadn’t Starscream been a Decepticon? The Autobot formerly known as Deadlock had made no exceptions in his explanations--in his eyes, all Decepticons had lost their way, including him.</p><p>Including Starscream.</p><p>And after? When Deadlock became Drift again? When the war ended, and mecha were being freed left and right and getting their well-deserved happy endings? If Drift had wanted the Seeker back there was nothing stopping him from going and getting him; Starscream hid from many those first few terrifying months out of prison back on Cybertron, but he’d never hidden from Drift.</p><p>But what had Drift done? Sought him out? Made amends? <em> Kept his promises? </em> No, he’d bought a ship for someone else sleek and smooth-talking and gone and fallen in love with a mech that was neither of those things. Starscream was forgotten in lieu of Ratchet, infamous Autobot CMO, who wasn’t flashy or dangerous or a set of pretty wings, but he was, as Drift put it, <em> everything else.  </em></p><p>A healer. Patient. Humble. Compassionate. Someone who saved lives, instead of taking them.</p><p><em> He really is everything I’m not, </em> Starscream thought mirthlessly. <em> Everything I never was, and never will be. </em> Still shaking, he thought of what he himself had told Drift their first night reunited and how the speedster hadn’t at all refuted it--that they had both changed, fully altered beyond recognition. But only one of them had changed for the better, and it wasn’t the one who woke up in a stranger’s berth, covered in their blood. Somewhere along the line in those two million years together, Starscream had chosen to twist himself into something that could fight back instead of just survive, and that <em> something </em> was someone not even <em> Deadlock </em> could love, let alone <em> like.  </em></p><p>Not after New Crystal City. Not after the Circle of Light, and escape and freedom, and someone called Wing, who had stolen Deadlock from the Seeker, stolen the proof of their claim, their <em> bond, </em> and replaced all of it with someone who couldn’t stomach what Starscream had become to stay alive but sure as Pit could stomach abandoning him to <em> Megatron. </em></p><p>Something was flashing. Starscream came back to himself in time to see the reminder he’d set on his HUD alerting him to the beginning of his shift, blinking angrily. Five minutes were all that stood between him and orientation with Ultra Magnus, oh joy of joys.</p><p>Drift was still staring at him, inarticulate with his hands held out entreatingly. </p><p>“You know what, forget I ever asked,” Starscream told him out the side of his mouth as he swept past him. “Forget I ever <em> anything, </em>and I’ll do the same. You’ve got a couple millennia against me on a head start, but trust me, I'll catch up.”</p><p>He didn’t make it far; Drift caught him by the wrist a second later at the exit of the showers. Long out of tolerance and past the point of shame in proving Drift right about him, Starscream didn’t hesitate: he balled his free servo into a fist and swung it right at the swordsmech’s face. The blow didn’t land but it came close, jarring Drift’s grip enough for the Seeker to wrestle out of it and put some distance between them so the next grab Drift made for him Starscream could dodge.</p><p>No second attempt was forthcoming, though. Starscream stood apart from him in the hall, venting hard, and Drift hesitated out of arm’s reach, servo outstretched but frozen midair.</p><p>Three minutes until his shift. Starscream dared to waste one of them fixing Drift with a frustrated, exhausted glare. He hated him, and he loved him, and he would never forgive him but he wanted him, he wanted him so much it <em> hurt, </em>hurt enough to pale every suffering he’d endured collectively in comparison, and try as Drift might to hide it Starscream could see they shared that similar conflict.</p><p>The Seeker kept lashing out and pushing him away, yet Drift continued to persist. Why? To what end? Was it possible that--like the both of them--the more things changed, the more they stayed the same? Or was all of <em> this </em> really only an expression of the ex-assassin’s guilt, chasing as futilely after absolution as Starscream was chasing after oblivion?</p><p>When Drift had defected, Starscream had been so full of desperate fury with nothing to aim it at, blinded by it; eventually resurgent attacks from the Autobots gave him a target and Starscream hadn’t wasted the time or energy to weep or mourn. He’d slaughtered anything lacking a Decepticon insignia and found, to his surprise, that in purging the world of a few lives he’d also purged himself of his grief. He’d moved on, spark intact.</p><p>Or so he thought, until he stepped onto the <em> Lost Light, </em> and there was Deadlock, now Drift, and everything Starscream had fought so viciously to destroy inside himself had come clawing its way back out, and proved a fatal truth the two of them were now being forced to face--his disowning Deadlock had meant nothing. <em> Nothing. </em> No matter what petty insults or attacks Starscream threw the speedster’s way, he knew there was no force or faction that could take away the status he’d granted Drift deep down in his core. In there, in the brightest corona of his being, Starscream knew he still loved him.</p><p>Regardless of betrayal. Regardless of anything.</p><p>Two minutes until his shift. </p><p><em> Primus, Unicron, and all the Thirteen, I </em> <b> <em>hate</em> </b> <em> this. </em> Starscream took a vent, troubled by how thick it felt in his intake. “This,” he said, gesturing tightly to himself, to Drift, and the space separating them, “can’t keep happening. It’s driving me <em> insane</em>.”</p><p>Drift sighed, weary and impatient. “You want something I can’t give you! I don’t--I don’t know what else I can do, or how to even begin making things right. But I want to try, if you’ll just <em> let </em> me.”</p><p>“<em>Let </em> you? Let you <em> what, </em> insert yourself into my life after I told you to get out of it and leave me alone? Let you pretend at being something you’re not so you can trick me into thinking I’m wanted, after <em> you yourself </em> proved I wasn’t? No no no, that’s not how this works, Deadlock.”</p><p>Starscream closed the distance, drawing himself up to his full height. He smacked Drift’s outstretched hand aside and snatched him by his collar flaring instead, tugging the ex-’Con down to the his level.</p><p>“I never saw fit to restrain myself when Megatron would have rejected our union so vehemently, and only secrecy granted us an audience. Well he might be on this ship, but my world isn’t that way anymore. I <em> unmade </em> that world. So either love me as I loved you then, or don’t love me <b>at all</b>.” Starscream’s spark was turbulent inside him, but his gaze and voice were unwavering and final. “Do you understand?”</p><p>Drift didn’t move an inch, save to let his helm fall into a nigh imperceptible nod.</p><p>“Yeah, I think I understand.” The speedster didn’t look happy about it in the least, but he took Starscream’s meaning completely: reciprocate or vacate. The Seeker would accept nothing done by half-measures and there would be no further compromises--be a part of his life or stay out of it, those were Drift’s choices.</p><p>It wouldn't be an easy one to make. </p><p>And it wasn't Starscream's problem. </p><p>“Good.” </p><p>Time was up.</p><p>He released Drift and left before he could say or do anything as horrifyingly honest as what he’d just done again, and he didn’t look back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>From here on out the story will probably happen more from Starscream's POV than Drift's, but it'll still bounce back and forth as needed.</p><p>also I had a major mindfuck while writing this story cuz I put on the SU movie for background noise and realized halfway through that I basically did the same thing to Star narratively that they did to Spinel and I've spent way too much time since then examining parallels in their characters but HEY 2021 is the year of embracing cringe without apology so FUCK IT am I right</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Awless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>No one cares what YOU think.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is 99% introspection, 1% sass, 0% story progression.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Starscream arrived fifteen kliks late to his job orientation with Ultra Magnus and was awarded his very first citation for his efforts.</p><p>“Subsequent infractions will result in time spent in the brig,” Magnus informed him on the way to the ship’s maintenance bay. “I would advise you to remain punctual if you wish to avoid this.”</p><p>“Yes, I’m sure you would.” Starscream muttered, matching his gait with Magnus’ without even a hint of discomfort. It was an act he had perfected over millions of years. “You know, if you’re going to threaten me with punishments to encourage my obedience, you really ought to try something worse than what I’ve been doing to myself since I got here. Be realistic Magnus, you’re talking to someone who used to take behavioral corrections from <em> Megatron</em>.”</p><p>“I am not attempting to threaten you, Starscream,” Ultra Magnus said in his signature tone, somewhere between stern and disappointed. “I am simply telling you the direct consequences of your actions, as stated by the rules and regulations written and agreed upon before departure, co-signed by all crew members.”</p><p>Starscream rolled his optics dramatically, ignoring the twinge of pain the motion caused to flare up in his aching helm. “Right, of course. It’s all procedural, naturally.” <em> A threat delivered bureaucratically is still a threat, but whatever aids your recharge at night.  </em></p><p>The rest of the short journey Ultra Magnus filled Starscream in on what exactly would be expected of him, needlessly-specific detail after needlessly-specific detail: scraping off space debris, caulking lose hull seams, replacing stripped bolts, grinding afterburn from the thrusters (which would <em>sadly</em> have to wait until the next time they docked), and of course, tightening rivets. Eventually Starscream had no choice but to hold up his hand in Magnus’ face, silencing him as efficiently as if he were holding a gun to it instead.</p><p>“Magnus, <em> must </em> you? You and I have been indirectly trying to kill the other for millennia, don’t rub road salt in the wound by insulting my intelligence. You know perfectly well I used to be a scientist, I can manage a slagging rivet gun.”</p><p>The hulking blue mech seemed surprised to hear the Seeker’s admission, pausing at the maintenance bay entrance to look Starscream over. “I have never doubted your intellect, only your… experience. I would have thought enlisted mech’s duties to be beneath an officer, particularly one of your--” Magnus cleared his vocalizer with a polite cough, “--rank.”</p><p>“The <em> Nemesis </em> was a floating scrapheap,” Starscream deadpanned. “Everyone pulled repair duty.”</p><p>Magnus entered the passcode without looking away from the Seeker. “Everyone?” he inquired with obvious meaning.</p><p>“Megatron did his fair share, in the beginning. Wanted the troops to see that while their benevolent leader might have risen above his station, he didn’t think manual labor was beneath him.” Starscream could still remember the sight of Megatron rappelling down the walls of the <em> Nemesis </em> exterior, bolting the ship’s plating back down flat again with one hand while directing Scrapper below with the other. Sweating condensation and covered in grime, Starscream had once found the sight very inspiring, among other things. All it inspired now was contempt.</p><p>“Why did he stop?” Ultra Magnus led Starscream into the equipment room--it was as tidy and well-organized as Starscream expected anything helmed by the Magnus to be. Rows of metal shelving were precisely labeled, and each tool had its place, which was also labeled.</p><p>“He decided it was beneath him.” The jet smirked. “And by that point even <em> hinting </em> that his prior experience would come in handy fixing some part of the ship meant the next thing needing to be fixed was <em> you</em>.” </p><p>Ultra Magnus made an uncomfortable noise of acknowledgement before directing Starscream to the shelf for outer hull repair. The Seeker knew Magnus was about to launch into some long winded explanation of things he already knew so he saved them both the trouble and started grabbing what he’d need, starting with a hefty magnetic tool belt that sat snug on his hip components.</p><p>“I might be going out on a limb here, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d wager the dear <em> captain </em> doesn’t have much to do with ship maintenance. And when I say captain, you know who I mean,” Starscream smirked, attaching a rivet gun to the belt. “Though I can’t fathom the Prime pulls his weight in keeping this ugly boat running, either.”</p><p>Ultra Magnus shot him a flat-eyed glare, and Starscream imagined the enforcer fancied it intimidating. He honestly wondered how long it was going to take Magnus to puzzle out nothing he did had the desired effect on the Seeker. “We all contribute in any way we can,” the big blue mech replied evenly. “Hence the duty roster. Rodimus does not aid in general vessel repair, but he contributes in other just as vital ways.”</p><p><em> Excuses, excuses. </em> </p><p>Starscream picked up a caulking gun next, twirling it like a blaster with one clawed digit before showily holstering it with a faint magnetic <em> zap. </em>Reaching for a rust grinder he gave Ultra Magnus’ frame a good look up and down, as if searching for a tell-tale scuff or scrape of red and yellow paint. “Oh yes, I’m sure he does,” he demurred, letting his vocoder supply whatever implication would offend the Autobot SIC the most. </p><p>His comment earned him a derisive huff, but nothing more. Starscream elected to try harder in the future, when his head wasn’t screaming at him quite so loudly and his internals didn’t feel like he was lubricating with salt water. A scraper was added to his menagerie of implements next, and it clanked and clinked against the other tools as he swayed back and forth, searching for a ring welder and chipping hammer. One was in each hand by the time he looked back up from the shelf, and there stood Ultra Magnus holding a pair of magna-locks for his pedes.</p><p>“Adjustable?” Starscream asked, lip curling. He <em> hated </em> magna-locks, the hideous, ungainly things. There wasn’t a bot in the universe those clunky pede-covers flattered.</p><p>“Within certain specs. As you are not a minibot or a triple-changer, they should fit comfortably.” He waited until the flier’s servos were empty, then deposited them with an addendum of, “Please refrain from activating your thrusters while wearing them. Excessive heat will--”</p><p>“Will destabilize the magnetism permanently, yes, I <em> know</em>.” Starscream locked the attachments onto his pedes one at a time, masterfully hiding the way bending over or spreading his legs was an acute agony. “Are you suffering from selective deafness? What part of ‘I was a scientist’ eludes you?”</p><p>That got him a definite optic-twitch. “I have not forgotten, Starscream. As <em> you </em> will recall, your intellectual endeavors in the past are the primary cause for barring you from entry into the science division aboard this ship.” A massive hand gestured to everything Starscream had saddled himself with from the waist down. “As I said earlier concerning rules and regulations, I am only giving you the proper warning regarding all proprietary equipment.” </p><p>“Can we just get on with this?” Starscream groused. His wings flicked, mirroring his impatience. </p><p>“Yes, let’s.” Ultra Magnus ex-vented. He was clearly as ready as the flier to part company and return to his own obligations.</p><p>It was a short walk to the airlock. Ultra Magnus watched impassively as Starscream flung the hatch open and pulled himself up into the void of space, weightlessness claiming him almost immediately. He held onto the anchoring bar that ran parallel to the hatch’s opening with both hands and took a nanoklik to savor how, without gravity, his frame’s joints suffered no weight to contribute to friction. Everything went nice and slack at the same time the impossible cold of space settled in, and he barely held back a contented sigh when his sensornet went from registering him as frigid, to <em> numb. </em> </p><p><em> Oh, thank the </em> <b> <em>Pit</em></b><em>, </em> he groaned as he activated the magna-locks and didn’t feel the pain of the aftershock tearing through his body when he slammed into the side of the ship, feet first.</p><p>[<em> Your shift is six joors, </em> ] Ultra Magnus commed from inside the ship, using Starscream's recently acquired frequency. Giving up his code was an unfortunate requirement of his job placement, since sound didn’t carry in the vacuum of space. [ <em> You will be relieved by Cyclonus at that time. </em> ] One of his enormous servos closed around the hatch’s speedwheel. [ <em> Do you have any questions? </em>]</p><p>Starscream crouched and peered down at Magnus, about to snort and say <em> no, I don’t, because I know more than you</em>, and then something he’d somehow missed caught his eye. A smug grin split his features. [ <em> Oh, just one. </em>] Ultra Magnus tilted his helm to indicate he was listening, and Starscream reached close with one claw extended--he swiped it across Magnus’ exposed palm lightening quick with surgical precision, and a tiny rain of reddish-orange paint flecks sprinkled down over the enforcer’s aghast faceplate.  </p><p>[<em> Was </em> <b> <em>this</em> </b> <em> contribution vital? </em>]</p><p>Starscream just <em> barely </em> pulled his arm in before Magnus slammed the hatch shut with a thunderous, resounding <em> CLANG. </em>He couldn’t hear how loud it was but he definitely felt the reverberations, all the way to the very tip-top of his wings.</p><p>Uproariously, silently, Starscream threw his head back and laughed.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Starscream had predicted rivet duty would be dull, repetitive, spark-draining work.</p><p>As per the norm, he was absolutely correct.</p><p>The magna-locks made walking as much a chore as the constant kneeling to examine each new imperfection or wear-and-tear to fix, to say nothing of the repairs themselves. Grinding out old rivets to replace, scraping and chipping at various disgusting deposits of space detritus that had latched onto the <em> Lost Light</em>’s hull, hammering down bits of plating beginning to curl in at the corners, caulking up broken seams, welding shut small tears from where asteroids glanced off the ship as it soared past planets and moons…</p><p>By the end of the first joor of his shift, Starscream's processor was as numb as his body. Too cold to condensate with hands blackened from welding the Seeker let his CPU run on a pleasant autopilot. It had been a long, long time since he’d been able to safely disconnect from the world around him and just exist, so long he’d forgotten he was capable. Billions of lightyears of inky black sky trailed around him in every direction, so vast and expansive it felt like he could see for forever, and his wings trembled with sheer, unbridled <em> want.  </em></p><p>Primus, but he hadn’t flown in ages. Not <em> real </em> flying. He’d done some here and there on Cybertron during his stint as its ruler, but always on business or in combat. So far as his flight protocols were concerned he might as well not have flown at all. Starscream had half a mind to ditch the tools and magna-locks then and there and just <em> take off, </em> fly as far and as fast as his new frame could carry him: take the galaxy for a ride, play cyberchicken with a black hole, and find a planet with an atmosphere he could punch through, shatter the sound barrier and make it <em> scream.  </em></p><p><em> Not today. </em> His servos worked the rivet gun tightening loose bolts precisely and perfectly, exactly the same as the machines had in the factory that birthed Starscream himself. <em> Someday. Not now, not tomorrow. But someday.  </em></p><p>No fuel in his tanks, nowhere to go. Not yet. Too many burned bridges left Starscream stranded alone, a solitary mech, an island; cut-off, deserted, inhospitable.</p><p>The rivet gun worked a steady rhythm under his hands. Without sound all he could perceive were the vibrations of the tool in his grip, the way they traveled up his arms and shook him enough to jostle his wings with every pull of the trigger.</p><p>It was cathartic. Soothing, almost. Reminiscent of his days in the academy and then his lab. The work was different but the methodology similar, and the constant repetition of a simple action again and again lulled the Seeker back into a state of mental vacancy. Manual labor, as dirty and humiliating as it so often was, had always relaxed Starscream. As high and mighty as he’d become in the present day, as materialistic and vain as he acted, he had never forgotten his roots. Take away the crown and the cape and the titles and underneath you’d find the dirt poor, cold-constructed Seeker with a chip on his shoulder, sick and tired of being reduced to his function and literally starving for something, <em> anything, </em>to prove he was more than number 1,408 out of 10,000. </p><p>Those early years of his life, before the academy, before Megatron, had been spent being used not unlike the tool currently in his hands, and no force in the universe--not death, not torture, not even Soundwave’s terrifying telepathy--was capable of forcing Starscream to admit that, before his eyes had been opened to the state of the world and his place in it, he’d bought into the Senate's propaganda about finding happiness in usefulness.</p><p>Ignorance was bliss, or some such slag. </p><p>Being a tool had been easy, uncomplicated. At times--and Primus but it sickened him to remember thinking it--it was even <em> rewarding. </em>Starscream, young and stupid, relishing in the simple pleasure of a job well done, glad to do it and proud at how well he performed his function.</p><p>Disgusting as those old thought protocols were, Starscream kept them. They were the basis of the foundation he’d built his ideals upon, ideals that carried him through millions of years of bloodshed at the behest of a madmech he’d sworn his spark to in service of, all to see those ideals made real. Ideals he held onto still despite where they’d led him because they were <em> right, </em> and they were <em> integral.  </em></p><p>The rivet gun went still in Starscream’s servo. Vacantly he latched it back onto his belt and fell onto his aft, staring sightlessly up into the infinite sprawling sea of stars far above him.</p><p><em> Cold-contructed, factory-made, cheap bargain bin knock-off, </em> he thought. <em> Sure showed them, didn’t I?  </em></p><p>His inexhaustible ambition had taken him farther than anyone could ever have predicted, and he’d done everything in his power to rub it in his entire Primus-damned species’ faces along the way. Derided at every turn for the things about himself he couldn’t change, Starscream saw fit to prove them wrong with those same qualities: made cold, made a Seeker, made low-caste, and he’d risen above it, over and over, no matter how often he was thrown back down. Pit, brought into the world the way he was, without a choice? Starscream had practically treated life like a <em> vendetta</em>. Every cycle ventilating was a cycle spent making existence itself his doormat, because how <em> dare </em> it give <em> Starscream </em> the short end of the stick and expect him to be satisfied.</p><p>No one had ever gotten that about him either, that his drive to rise to the top wasn’t purely a self-serving desire to lord power over the masses. It was more than that. It was vengeance, unequivocal <em> vengeance </em> against being <em> alive. </em> No one else seemed to understand that because he’d been forced into life wrong, against his will and hated for it, he <em> had </em> to put a gun to life’s head--it was the only way he’d ever <em> get </em> anything out of it.</p><p>Windblade saw it in him, but she’d never understood. Bumblebee didn’t support his methods, yet he’d taken a lot of Starscream’s personality in stride. Certainly Wheeljack recognized where the Seeker was coming from, or thought he did; enough to say he trusted Starscream and work with him.</p><p>Handling tools and breaking his backstrut with light engineering brought the masked speedster to mind, and how unusually fond Starscream had been of him. Powerful denial and justified paranoia had kept him in check of ever pursuing his fellow scientist, though looking back on how he’d stared after Wheeljack whenever he walked away, Starscream could no longer deny it was because of his resemblance to Drift. The Seeker had made a point of checking in on his former comrade over the vorns he’d protected him to guarantee he remained online, and once Deadlock swapped his black plating out for white Starscream found himself helplessly drawn to any racer frame-type with a powerful engine and sleek ivory paint.</p><p>Oh, and of course, who could forget <em> Megatron? </em> Him and his poetry and his grand revolution. Liar that he was, Starscream hadn’t exaggerated at the warlord’s trial--he really had been seduced by Megatron’s rhetoric. It made the Seeker cringe, thinking back to how he’d literally fallen to his knees the day they met, when he’d famously pledged his <em> allegiance undying. </em> Blind with devotion, Starscream took up with the Decepticons because he foolishly believed Megatron would deliver on all his flashy promises; there <em> had </em> been a time, Starscream knew, when he’d looked at the miner and thought, <em> this one, this one right here, </em> <b> <em>he</em> </b> <em> understands. </em> Here was someone who knew, here was someone who came from worse, here was someone who wanted it <em> more.  </em></p><p>And then everything went to absolute <em> shit. </em></p><p>Starscream chose to shut down any more memories of Megatron before they had a chance to queue, diverting instead to any and all files labeled ‘Deadlock’, simply because his mind was going down this route whether he liked it or not and Drift would always be the lesser of two evils.</p><p>Space blanketed the Seeker as he leaned all the way back, wings splayed out widely against the freezing hull, interlaced servos settled across the center of his cockpit.</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock.  </em>
</p><p>Ruthless, cutthroat, efficient. Starscream had hated him from the start. Deadlock was more competition, just another mech the Seeker had to stand out from to keep Megatron’s attention on him, and <em> only </em> him. Things like that had mattered in the early vorns of the war, before they suddenly didn’t, and then began the delicate game of push and pull: reeling Megatron in enough to distract him, spot the weak points where he could drive in the knife, and then pushing him away so he didn’t get close enough to see any of Starscream’s. By the time Deadlock ran afoul of Starscream in the showers that fateful cycle all the pushing and pulling had near enough torn the Air Commander apart.</p><p>He’d thought Deadlock would blackmail him. It’s what Starscream would have done, were their positions reversed, or so he told himself. The second their optics met, it was over; they both saw, plain as day, they were two of a kind.</p><p>Oh, and <em> what </em> a kind they were.</p><p>Deadlock, betrayed by life the same as Starscream, twisted from the spark outward and wrapped up in an armor of jagged edges, ready and willing to punish anyone or anything responsible for his miserable lot in life. Primus, he’d been full of so much <em> hate. </em> Hate for the upper-castes, hate for the sparkless enforcers they employed, hate for the Autobots who stood by and did nothing, and hate for a society that gave mecha like him no choice but to sell themselves in the gutter for fuel and then turned right around to pass judgement on them for doing so.</p><p>Deadlock understood. He’d <em> understood. </em>They had been the same, a pair of wretched, broken creatures who spared none their fury but the other, wicked and impure, sinners sinning for sin’s sake, spitting in the eye of Primus by daring to live outside the lives chosen for them and killing anyone who tried to stop them.</p><p>They were the same, and it had mattered, and he’d understood, and he’d <em> claimed him, </em> they’d claimed each other, and it had been awful and far from perfect but it had been theirs and it had been <em> enough. </em></p><p>Starscream pressed the back of his hand against his tight-lipped mouth, teeth grit so hard his jaw creaked.</p><p><em> God, </em> he’d been so <em> fucking </em> happy.</p><p>But Deadlock hadn’t. He left and took his solace with him, and Starscream… he’d gone back to what he knew. He went back to the simplicity of being a tool for someone else to wield, uncomplicated and uninspired, so insensate and eager to turn off his module and let someone else do the thinking for a change that when the chance to lead the Decepticons <em> did </em> finally come to him he led them straight into the ground. Then Megatron returned and beat him half to termination, and all the while Starscream remembered wondering how Deadlock--by then, Drift--would avoid the D.J.D. without him.</p><p>He’d begged for death knowing his offlining would ensure Drift the worst kind of end imaginable, and then found, when all was said and done, that he was almost disappointed Megatron let him live.</p><p>Starscream had wanted to die. He’d wanted them <em> both </em> to die. It was the only way, he’d reasoned, they’d ever be the same again.</p><p>And now, stripped of every title he’d ever earned, exiled on a junkyard of a ship in nowhere-space, with quite literally <em> nothing </em> to show for his long crusade of a life except all the ill-will he’d harbored close to his spark and a meaningless scar on his shoulder, Starscream saw he was as correct in his assessment as ever: Starscream was a gutted mech left hollow, and Drift, no longer the same, was filled with a resplendent bond that left no room for anything he once had in common with the Seeker.</p><p>The jet took his servo from his mouth and counted off on it silently, one digit at a time--<em>seeker, senator, second-in-command, sacred ruler, and last but most definitely not least, </em> <b> <em>sucker</em></b><em>.  </em></p><p>A buzz was going off somewhere inside his helm. Checking his HUD showed him a pre-composed message from Ultra Magnus, informing him his six joors of rivet duty were finished. Next to it flashed an alert to refuel as soon as possible. Next to <em> that </em> flashed a systems warning, updating him to all internal damage he’d exacerbated by squatting and bending constantly for several consecutive hours. </p><p>Starscream let out a very long ex-vent. He wasn’t looking forward to his sensornet thawing out, or the return of his hangover. He was looking forward to collecting his energon ration from the dispensary even less.</p><p>Least of all did he look forward to getting out from under the sky.</p><p><em> Soon, </em> Starscream promised himself, taking a last long look at the cosmos above before heading for the hatch he’d started from. <em> Soon. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this chapter was inspired mostly by a lifetime of manual labor, country living, and all the tools I had to learn to use when I bought a 200 year old farmhouse</p><p>in other news, this chapter was delayed because my goat had a baby this morning!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Adroit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>YOU are nothing but a problem, aren't you?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Coming back into the ship was like dipping the tip of your frozen pede into a hot oil bath, except it was <em> everywhere </em> and all at once.</p><p>Starscream passed his rivet duty gear to his shift replacement, Magnus’ aforementioned Cyclonus, who he thought looked more like a Decepticon than any actual Decepticon ever had, save perhaps for Tarn, and Cyclonus did it without being such a tryhard. </p><p>His fellow jet accepted the tool belt and magna-locks without a word, only inclining his helm to demonstrate his thanks. Starscream watched him scale the ladder up to the hatch until he was out of sight. Feeling slowly seared its way back along every neural circuit of his sensornet, freezing hot all the way down to his protoform, and the Seeker took advantage of his quickly fading numbness to head toward the lower decks. All too soon he knew the rip in the metalmesh of his valve and the thundering in his helm would make themselves known, return feeling nice and refreshed, their twin agonies neatly tripled by his hours of manual labor, and he wanted to get his ration and dump it down his intake before any of that pain could substantially manifest.</p><p>All the locations Drift had shown him his first night onboard were logged in Starscream’s database, which he kept in perfect order despite his horrid recharge habits. Accessing the files containing the ship’s blueprints and the fastest route to the dispensary should have been as simple as blinking, but when Starscream went searching for them his CPU dipped significantly. A klik passed before he even realized he’d gone into a soft reboot standing up. It took another klik to get his processor in order and find what he was looking for.</p><p>Energon dispensary: mid-level, same as the hab-suites and showers. </p><p>Which meant he was in for a <em>lot </em>of elevator rides.</p><p>“Great.”</p><p>Growing lightheaded and unfortunately more and more sensate by the second, Starscream took off at glacial pace for the elevator.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>It was the sound of a gunshot that halted him in the middle of a hallway several decks later. The <em> Lost Light </em> wasn’t built in a way that someone could ride a single elevator from the top to the bottom, so transfers through side-passages had to be made. Most of the corridors were short and empty, only as long as they needed to be to skirt around some other room or vital structure below--that one wasn’t. It was lengthy, with just the three doors: the one he’d come through, the one at the end leading to the next elevator, and the one nestled to the side of the second.</p><p>The sound had come from there.</p><p><em> An attack? </em> Starscream wondered as he approached. <em> Or a murder? </em> A murder would be the most interesting thing to see since he'd arrived. From what he’d heard, they used to happen on the <em> Lost Light </em> with a bizarre regularity. Suicide seemed most plausible all things considered, and then he heard a second shot. And a third.</p><p>Unarmed, dizzy, underfueled and aching, Starscream investigated the only door the shots could be coming from, vaguely mulling over if <em> he </em> was about to get shot, mildly assuaged by the fact he’d survived worse and also that he and his own well-being weren’t currently on speaking terms.</p><p>Stepping fully into the room Starscream saw something Drift had neglected to show him during his tour, and he instantly understood why.</p><p>
  <em> A shooting range. They have a shooting range.  </em>
</p><p>Reality slid diagonal without warning and suddenly Starscream wasn’t on an Autobot ship in the post-war era barely holding it together; he was on the <em> Nemesis, </em> millions of years in the past, finger hovering over the door-locking mechanism while biting his lip as the intricate platelets of Deadlock’s back armor shifted each time he ejected his gun’s magazine and reached for a new one, slamming it home with a deliciously satisfying <em> click. </em> </p><p>The memory was so visceral, so <em> real, </em> he actually felt his hand reach for a command key on a panel that wasn’t there. <em> Why would it be? </em> he mentally chastised himself, <em> this isn’t the Nemesis, and the war has been over for years. </em>Deaf to his own sense of reason, the memory file loaded anyway, and Starscream could only stand helpless and watch the scene from his past play out in front of him, blind to all else.</p><p>
  <em> Him, so much younger, paint fresh and glossy to distract from the fresh, ugly welds barely hidden beneath his armor, only minutes out of Hook's medbay. Deadlock, spotting him and putting down his cherished gun to reach out and grip an even more treasured weapon. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Him, swallowing the hiss contact against his raw soldering brought up into his mouth. Deadlock, knowing him too well and letting go.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Him, rushing back into the assassin’s space again anyway, stubborn, desperate, hurt; pressing close and latching tight with his claws, face buried against the speedster’s neck. Deadlock, assured, chuckling low and dark and warm as he wrapped Starscream up again no longer too worried to squeeze. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock, ghosting his sharpened dentae over the top of the Seeker’s helm. “What’d ya do this time, ya little glitch?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Him, simmering with rage but fiercely proud. “Megatron. Stupid old slagger tried to crush one of TC’s wings for fouling up his scouting mission this morning. I shot him, twice.” Him, giggling obscenely. “One bolt in the face, the other right in his rusted-up crotch. He tore me apart for that, but it was worth it.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock, laughing, a heavy comforting rumble that shook them both. Him, sore but safe so long as he stayed right where he was, shrouded in the scent of hot metal and gunpowder.  </em>
</p><p>Gunpowder. He could still smell the gunpowder. No, that was wrong--he was smelling gunpowder in the here and now.</p><p>Sensory registers had knocked him out of his recall, but Starscream didn’t need to review the memory to remember what happened next--Deadlock had kissed him, swiped a servo blindly across the counter-top to make room for Starscream’s aft and hoisted him upon it, sending dozens of rounds of ammunition flying. They’d gone at it right there in the range with nothing but a locked door between them and the rest of the ship, Megatron included, and that flimsy steel door wouldn’t have stopped a drone let alone the Slagmaker. Neither of them cared enough about the consequences to waste time worrying about being interrupted or killed mid-’face; all either of them had cared about in that moment was staying as close as physically possible, fragging the other as deep as possible, chasing overload without ever separating more than an inch. Deadlock had kissed him all throughout too, Starscream remembered, never letting their mouths part, not to ventilate or speak or moan, <em> nothing. </em> Because Megatron didn’t like to kiss but Starscream did, and as disappointed as he was that he’d never been able to manipulate the old fool into liking it he was twice as ecstatic that Deadlock had taken that bit of information as a personal challenge--something <em> he </em> could give Starscream that Megatron couldn’t, that Megatron <em> wouldn’t.  </em></p><p>Something he could give Starscream he actually wanted.</p><p>Like all things interface related kissing lost its appeal after Drift defected, and he’d never done it again. He hadn’t kissed anyone or been kissed <em> by </em> anyone in over two million years; Overtake had tried several times at the bar and several more in his hab, but when the Seeker reared back his fist and upper-cutted the four-wheeler right off the berth, no more attempts at kissing were made.</p><p>Lost in thought and memory, Starscream became aware of two things simultaneously: one, he was holding his claws over his lips, and two, someone was speaking. To him. </p><p>Someone was speaking to <em> him</em>.</p><p>“What?” he asked, blinking rapidly, yanking his hand away from his mouth much too fast. Standing in front of him was Perceptor, a sniper rifle over his shoulder and a guarded expression on his face.</p><p>“I said, ‘did you come to shoot?’ I was under the impression you were still barred from owning or operating any kind of firearm. If someone has given you one, or you’ve procured one through other means, I’ll have to confiscate it and report you.”</p><p>“Come off it, Wrecker, as if anyone here would give <em> me </em> a gun. And for the record, when I steal I steal big, I wouldn’t waste my time and energy on something as insignificant as a blaster when my whole body is already a weapon. Besides,” he said loftily, turning to go with a flick of his wing, “there’s only one gun I ever cared to fire, and he’s <em> piloting </em> this trainwreck.”</p><p>An unfortunate truth. He didn't know why he said it.</p><p>Alerts were popping up on his HUD, reminding him again the urgent need to refuel. Starscream dismissed them and stepped into the next elevator, pressing the button for the mid level decks right as Perceptor walked in to join him. The doors shut before Starscream thought to jump back out, and then the ex-Wrecker was leaning over to examine all the labelled switches on the control panel. Starscream's wings twitched at his proximity.</p><p>“The dispensary?” Perceptor asked.</p><p>Starscream narrowed his optics. The cab lurched as they descended and he used the motion to hide the wobble of his legs as processor shutdown crept ever closer. “No,” he lied.</p><p>“Hm.” Perceptor selected the button for the lower levels, where Starscream knew the ship’s laboratory to be. “You should. You’re roughly a breem from automatic system failure.”</p><p>The Seeker bristled in affront. “My fuel levels are hardly <em> your </em> business,” he hissed, moving as far from Perceptor as he could in the small space. He had to fight the childish urge to cover his optics knowing their lack of color was giving his underfueled state away.</p><p>“You’re right,” the microscope agreed easily. “It’s not my business if you black out in the hallway either, but as a scientist I’m curious what exactly it is you’re trying to prove.”</p><p>Starscream let the wall take his weight, arms crossed. “I don’t have anything to prove,” he asserted. “Least of all to <em> you </em> lot.”</p><p>“Ah,” Perceptor said, and Starscream realized with a sinking spark it was the noise all scientists produced when they made a fascinating discovery. “You <em> are </em> trying to prove something. Just not to us.”</p><p>He cursed his lagging processor and cleared another round of alerts and errors clogging up his HUD without saying anything back. Starscream remained persistently silent for the remainder of his ride, never once responding to any of the ex-Wrecker's inquiries and leaving as quickly as he could without appearing to flee the second the doors opened on his floor. </p><p>His mind felt like it was trying to form thoughts in a vat of tar and a blistering pain was starting to bloom between his legs as his internals thawed. Starscream didn’t have the presence of mind or the stamina to verbally spar with the ship’s “genius”, even though a tiny part of him actually really wanted to, because nothing was as engaging as having an argument with someone intellectually capable of meeting him halfway and loathe as he was to admit it, Starscream was bored out of his fragging <em> skull. </em> </p><p><em> Pit, </em> he was going to have to do <em> so </em> much slagging rivet duty before they let him into the labs. One shift in and it was abundantly clear all that time and space to himself was going to do more to hinder him than help, and left barren of stimulation his brain was perfectly happy to replay all his failures and longings to make up for it.</p><p>Primus knew it didn't have much else.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>----</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>The dispensary looked, in Starscream’s opinion, like a cafeteria masquerading as a broom closet. Or maybe the other way around.</p><p>Large enough to allow three average sized mecha inside at a time so long as one of them was jammed up in the corner next to the energon dispenser itself, Starscream still had to tuck his wings in to make it inside.</p><p>The mech manning the dispenser didn’t notice Starscream enter--his nose was buried in a datapad, muttering under his ventilations about which filters looked better. Another four-wheeler, this one painted up in forest green and cyan. Starscream hated him immediately, if only for that travesty of a color scheme. His gauge dipped dangerously close to 5% again and loving his living arrangements less and less, Starscream cleared his vocoder, <em> loudly, </em> causing the mech in front of him to jump in alarm, fumbling his datapad right out of his hand.</p><p>It hit the floor, screen first.</p><p>“Noooo!” The Autobot wailed, falling to his knees to snatch it up a nanoklik later. “Oh please, pleaseplease<em>please</em>--!” He turned it, revealing a perfect split in the glass, right down the center. Devastated, his visor lit bright blue in anguish; then his helm snapped toward Starscream, accusing and furious. Recognition flashed, and he bared his teeth. “<em>You</em>! What did you go and do that for huh, ya lousy ‘Con?!”</p><p>Starscream scoffed. “It’s not my fault you were trawling the datanet instead of doing your job. I know you grounders have difficulty maintaining focus, but maybe try <em> paying attention </em> next time.” He held out a servo. “My rations, if you please.”</p><p>The mech climbed to his feet, broken datapad cradled to his chest like it was a dying sparkling. “Get fragged, Screamer! You can have your fuel after you replace my shattered screen!”</p><p>“It’s <em>one</em> crack, that’s hardly--ugh, to the Pit with this, I’ll do it myself.” The dispenser was of the simplest make and model, one long plexiglass cylinder with a spigot near the bottom, not unlike the ones kept on the warships during long, interstellar missions. Plenty of empty cubes were stacked on the counter around it--Starscream grabbed one and started filling it.</p><p>“Hey!” snapped the Autobot, “you can’t do that!”</p><p>“Watch me,” Starscream snarled at him. The fear in the four-wheeler’s visor at the sight of the Seeker’s fangs was a temporary salve to Starscream’s temper. Three cubes were filled, sealed, and packed away into his sub-space--plenty to tide over a slim flight frame that wasn’t doing any flying--and then he filled a fourth, staring the mech dead in the optics as he let the energon pour and pour until it overflowed, trickling bright pink fuel all over his fingers and onto the floor. Just as the mech started to threaten him, Starscream grabbed the steel tap tight in his left servo and wrenched it right off the tank.</p><p>“Whoops,” he smiled.</p><p>The Autobot’s intake fell open in horror as gallon after gallon of energon gushed out of the newly ripped hole, onto the deck, rushing over their pedes and out the door into the hall spreading faster and faster. Starscream hummed with pleasure, sipping from his cube as his HUD tidied itself, while the dispensary mech looked like he was about to blow a fuse.</p><p>“What the <em> FUCK</em>?!” he cried, ditching his broken datapad to the deluge on the floor to futilely try stemming the tankard’s flow. Even two hands combined weren’t enough, it just kept right on spilling through his digits, albeit at a slower rate that had nothing to do with his efforts and everything to do with the energon supply simply running out. “Primus Screamer, what the actual <em> fuck </em> is your problem?!”</p><p>“That is the million-shanix question, isn’t it?” Starscream smirked, completely without humor. </p><p>He finished his ration, tank sitting pleasantly around 35%, and placed the empty cube politely back on the counter. The spigot he considered for a moment, turning it this way and that in his razored hand. An inclination rose in him to throw the Autobot to the floor and impale him with it, just to see if it worked as well on Cybertronians as it did glass containers; he savored his gory fantasy for a few seconds, then shrugged and tossed it away to join the drowned datapad below. Primus knew he’d have enough slag to deal with whenever Ratchet snitched about the damage done to Overtake--<em>consensual </em> damage, he’d have to emphasize--so there’d be no getting away with an outright stabbing. Not without the excuse of sex to hide behind.</p><p>“Ultra Magnus is gonna hear about this!” the Autobot swore, frame actually <em> shaking </em> he was so mad. </p><p>Starscream shot him a vindictive smile. "Good!” He said brightly, “<em>Someone </em> is going to have to clean this up.”</p><p>The Autobot couldn’t have broadcast his incoming attack any clearer. He lunged for the Seeker, arms outstretched with impulsive intent, probably to strangle him. Starscream sidestepped him effortlessly, letting simple physics take their course: the mech’s pedes hit the slippery pool of energon running and without traction his subsequent fall, accelerated forward motion, and laughable lack of reaction time sent him tripping and skidding through the shallow ocean of fuel, face first, with a pitiful yet colorful splash.</p><p>Whatever he hollered in indignant fury was lost to the energon. Starscream made a swift exit, strutting away as he muffled a cruel, tittering laugh behind his servo.</p><p>Immature as it may be, causing problems on purpose never <em> did </em> get old.</p><p>Pain temporarily forgotten, Starscream knew <em>just</em> where to go to cause some more.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Drift expected to find Ratchet toiling away in the medbay.</p><p>Drift didn’t <em> not </em> expect to find Overtake being toiled over, yet he still found it in him to quirk an optical ridge in surprise.</p><p>“I warned you.” He sighed.</p><p>“I’d do it again,” Overtake grinned, completely unapologetic. He was more welds than plating and looked <em> very </em> pleased with himself.</p><p>Ratchet switched off the welding torch and placed it on the steel tray beside him. “You know something about this, kid?”</p><p>“Unfortunately.”</p><p>“Is it Starscream related?”</p><p>Drift pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it’s Starscream related.” </p><p>The medic made an unimpressed noise of understanding and stood, wiping his hands clean on what Drift recognized as the salvaged remains of the torn berth cover. <em> Waste not want not. </em> “Overtake, you’re clear to go. Here.” Ratchet passed him a cube of medical grade energon a little rougher than needed. “Drink <em> all </em> of it, I mean it. And if I see you in here again for the same reason I’m soldering your panels shut. Got it?”</p><p>“Whatever you say, doc-bot.” The four-wheeler saluted and whistled as he left, a satisfied limp in his gait.</p><p>When he was gone Ratchet busied himself cleaning his tools, though his helm was cocked in Drift’s direction. The swordsmech knew what he was waiting for, and with everything else out in the open there seemed little reason to withhold anything anymore. Based on Starscream's explosive reaction that morning the only off-limit topic was Megatron, meaning all other topics were fair game.</p><p>“Before I came to talk to you last night, I saw them at Swerve’s together. Him and Starscream.”</p><p>Ratchet made another unimpressed noise. “Cute couple.”</p><p>Drift sat on the med-berth across from Ratchet, optics following the deft, practiced motions of his servos with the polishing cloth. “Starscream went looking for someone he could take his pain out on; he found Overtake. Or, I think it’s more accurate the other way around. Overtake found him.”</p><p>Ratchet held an instrument up to the light, testing its shine. “What makes you say that?”</p><p>“Based on what they both told me in the bar yesterday and Overtake’s attitude this morning, this is probably what they agreed was going to happen, more or less. He <em> enjoyed </em> it. And if Starscream is the one that hunts someone down to hurt, trust me, they <em> don’t </em> enjoy it. Whichever mech he’d have picked himself you wouldn’t have seen walking out of here whistling.”</p><p>That time Ratchet made a thoughtful sound. A dangerous sound. “Speaking from experience, kid?”</p><p>Drift felt several emotions pass through Ratchet’s field all at once, a fierce string of <em> anger-protect-payback </em> and he sat forward, taking his conjunx gently by the arm. “Whoa, slow down there Ratch,” he said with an affectionate smile, flooding his field with gratitude and calm. He loved seeing Ratchet get protective of him, but this was one time it actually wasn't called for. “I do know from experience, but don’t worry, he never took it out on <em> me. </em>That’s… part of why I went looking for him, actually.”</p><p>Ratchet’s mouth turned up at the corner, field easing smooth. His lips went flat again a second later. “You went there to stop him.”</p><p>"I know his patterns, mostly. We didn't let him starve, and denied one form of self-destruction he inevitably goes in search of another."</p><p>Now Ratchet looked skeptical. "You didn't see Overtake when he came crawling through my medbay doors this morning. Him letting Screamer carve him up like he did? <em> That's </em> self-destructive." He huffed and started putting things away. "In <em> what </em> universe does mangling a guy hurt the one mangling him more than the one getting mangled?"</p><p>"The one where a mech trades the right to say 'no' so he can hurt someone as much as they hurt him."</p><p>Ratchet paused. He glanced at Drift over his shoulder. "What?"</p><p>"It's not so different from what we did in the Dead End, trading frames for favors." Drift said, hating the way Rachet flinched--the way he <em> always </em> flinched--whenever his old way of life was mentioned. "It's what he used to do too, back during the war. He'd get as slag-faced as he possibly could, then go hunt someone down he knew hated him and let them have a crack at his valve in exchange for the chance to beat in their teeth."</p><p>"Primus," Ratchet grimaced, taking a seat of his own on the opposite berth. "And I'll bet he had his pick of the litter, didn't he?"</p><p>Drift's spark clenched in its chamber. "Oh, yeah. And the worse a beating he gave them after they used him, the rougher they 'faced him the next time he came calling. It was a vicious cycle, and I was the one who finally came along and broke it." Drift stared down at where his servos were gripping the berth cover, bunching it hard between his fingers, and thought of the mark he'd left on Starscream's shoulder. "I'd see him start to spiral and I'd step in, get him alone, you know? I could give him the distraction he needed and he didn’t want to hurt me like he wanted to hurt them, so it was like a hard reset that knocked him right out of his self-destructive pattern."</p><p>Ratchet frowned, visibly torn. "And that's why you went to the bar."</p><p>"I wasn't going to--to <em> help him </em> like I did during the war," Drift said quickly. It was imperative Ratchet not misunderstand or, Primus forbid, lose faith in where Drift's affections lie. "My only goal was to talk him down, stop him before he hurt anyone. I would have put a stop to him right then and there, but Overtake was very… <em> candid </em> about their plans for the evening."</p><p>“So he knew what he was signing up for.”</p><p>“I think he <em> thinks </em> he knew what he was signing up for,” Drift said. “Judging by what I saw all he really understood was Starscream wanted to hurt something and he was getting a free overload out of it.” The swordsmech shrugged. “I really <em> did </em> try to warn him.”</p><p>Ratchet rubbed at his chin. “You’re a stubborn little leech when you want to be, too. It’s not like you to give up on someone once you’ve decided to make yourself their problem.” The barb was delivered with no small amount of loving exasperation, and it took all the tension out of Drift he’d been holding in.</p><p>“Starscream… Starscream made it clear that whatever ‘obligation’ I thought I had toward him because of the claim, he didn’t want. Called it half a bond. Said he didn’t want me, or anything to do with me, and I--I <em> know </em> he’s lying, you can’t con a ‘Con, but calling him out on scrap like that only frags him off more, and if I can’t acknowledge the lie all I can do it take him at his word and respect it.”</p><p>Ratchet’s tone was oddly reproachful when he spoke, which Drift hadn’t expected in regards to anything involving the former Decepticon SIC, ever. Like, <em> ever.  </em></p><p>“He told you to get lost, and you did.”</p><p>“He told me to get lost and I did, yeah.”</p><p>The medic shook his head, smiling crookedly at his conjunx. “I guess there’s something to be said for respecting a mech’s wishes, no matter how wrong you know they are,” and the look he leveled at Drift was far from insignificant. Drift opened his mouth to say something waspish in retort when his comm went off in his audial with a screech of feedback loud enough to send him reeling. Rodimus’ voice followed, uncharacteristically urgent.</p><p>[ <em> Hey, Drift, um! You need to meet me at Swerve’s, like, now! Like </em> <b> <em>right now</em></b><em>. </em>]</p><p>He dialed down the volume in his audio suite manually to a bearable level, wondering what could have happened in the handful of hours since he’d replied to all Rodimus’ messages that morning, then admonished himself for even wanting to ask, because this was the <em> Lost Light, </em> and <em> anything </em> could have happened, of course it could have, don’t be <em> thick.</em></p><p>[ <em> Roddy? What’s going on? What’s wrong? </em>] Ratchet saw the change in his expression, felt the echo of alarm in their joined sparks, and stood. Drift was already up, already moving for the doors. At the last nanosecond he thought to turn, and took Ratchet’s servo in his. “Sounds like a fight at the bar. You stay here--I don’t know what’s going on yet but I get the feeling you’re about to be busy.”</p><p>Ratchet, ever the consummate professional, slid right back into his grumpy medic persona. “I’ll get things prepped, First Aid’ll be in any minute to trade shifts. See if you can’t keep whichever idiots are involved mostly in one piece, for my sake? Drunk fraggers are cutting into my personal time.”</p><p>Drift pulled Ratchet’s hand to his lips, kissing his scuffed knuckles sweetly, like something out of one of those old, sappy pre-war holovids. Ratchet’s stoic doctorly facade was perfectly ruined by just a <em> hint </em> of color in his cheeks.</p><p>“I’ll be back soon as I can.”</p><p>They pulled apart to face their mutual obligations, and free of the medbay Drift took off racing down the corridor, throwing himself into his alt-mode to make up for precious seconds spent charming his bondmate.</p><p>[ <em> Roddy? You there? Rodimus? </em>]</p><p>[<em> Oh, frag, Drift, you’re uh--you’re not gonna like this. </em>]</p><p>His spark sank. [ <em> I already don’t. What’s happening down there? </em>]</p><p>[<em> It’s Starscream, </em> ] he said, and that was all it took to get Drift shifting gears. [ <em> Apparently he came in during one of Swerve’s storytelling nights, and I don’t know exactly what went down, I haven’t gotten there yet, but Swerve said Whirl said</em> <b><em>something</em> </b> <em> and I guess whatever it was really torqued Screamer off, ‘cause he said something </em> <b> <em>worse</em> </b> <em> and that got him cold-cocked, and then he fought back, and now it’s basically the Kaon gladiatorial arena 2.0 down here, and Drift, I think Screamer is playing to </em> <b> <em>win</em>.</b>]</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter came out way longer than intended and didn't cover the event I intended it to, because fanfiction is a cruel and fickle mistress. I had fun with it though, and the next chapter is looking to be even more fun because we're finally getting into the thick of what I outlined for this fic when I started. It's time for Starscream to go feral, WHOOOOOOO</p><p>We also haven't seen Megatron at all since the first chapter, and that's very intentional. But he can't keep avoiding his ex-sic forever... B)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Abattoir</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Full disclosure up front: I borrowed the idea of Truth or Drink and the idea of asking who someone slept with as a plot device straight from Enfilade, who is a far superior writer to me. All credit for that bit goes to them. Credit also goes to Aegrisomnia89 for a fair bit of Whirl's dialog, because they too are a far superior writer to me and their help in finishing this chapter cannot be overstated. This chapter took much longer than I anticipated, mostly because I bought Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and refused to stop playing until I got 200.6% completion.</p><p>This was by far the most cathartic chapter for me to write thus far. I hope you enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was loud when Starscream strolled into Swerve’s, the kind of loud that rose and fell in the cadence of speech instead of music, a contained volume.</p><p>No booming bass was playing, nor any other kind of song. Not even quietly, like background noise. The only sound came from the gaggle of mecha gathered around the bar and the few scattered to the fringes of nearby tables, indirect in participation of whatever was going on and clearly listening to everything said.</p><p>This would hardly do for the kind of scene Starscream was looking to cause. Strutting to the counter, he shouldered two mechs aside, both of which protested loudly.</p><p>“Watch it!”</p><p>“Eugh, Starscream?!”</p><p>‘Yo, ‘Con on deck!”</p><p>"There goes the party."</p><p>The Seeker ignored them, looking around for wherever the diminutive loud-mouthed bartender was; he spotted him at the other end of the bar laughing his helm off at something a little blue and white minibot was saying. Quite a few were engrossed in his story, crowded around with their drinks, snickering or giggling at whatever he’d said. Very few were paying attention to Starscream’s arrival save for a few suspicious glares--and one perversely appreciative stare, which Starscream pretended not to notice for the time being but logged away for future leverage purposes, should need arise--and the rest were starting to edge away from him, grimacing and sneering as they went.</p><p><em>Good riddance,</em> he thought, optics dancing over the variety of engex bottles stashed under the counter across from him. Mercury wasn’t in the line-up. Just as well, since he’d about had his fill of it. Something called Nightmare Fuel beckoned, and Starscream licked his lips. His hangover hadn’t completely dissipated yet and a hair of the turbofox that bit him sounded divine right about then.</p><p>“Starscream?” A voice questioned from somewhere in the throng to his left. He looked and saw a mech with dual-mounted shoulder cannons sporting a color scheme that bore an unfortunate similarity to Overlord’s making his way rather boldly toward him. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>Starscream didn’t know the mech talking to him, but that wasn’t new. Nor was it new for someone to talk like they knew him, because, well, they probably did. <em> Everyone </em> knew him. The fearless familiarity was a tad obnoxious, though. <em> Who are you and how dare you approach me. </em></p><p>“What does it <em> look </em> like?” he asked, gesturing at the towering cylinders of booze that almost reached the ceiling.</p><p>“Ah, right. You sure you want to be a part of this? Not that you couldn’t lie I guess, I don’t figure most folks here would be able to call you on the kind of stuff they’re asking anyway.”</p><p>Starscream cocked an optical ridge at him. “What precisely <em> is </em> going on here? Is this a bar or not?”</p><p>“It’s one of Swerve’s theme nights. Tonight is ‘Truth or Drink’,” the mech explained. “Drinks are only for participants, unless you brought your own.”</p><p>“Truth or Drink,” Starscream said. “How very novel. And so <em> Autobot </em> of you all as well.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?” another mech demanded, leaning away from the crowd into the jet’s personal bubble. Whatever story the minibot was telling was winding down, setting free the attention he’d previously held captive. Starscream beamed at this new source of entertainment, sliding smoothly onto the stool beside him, loving the way he automatically recoiled.</p><p>“Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you,” Starscream purred, rapping his claws on the counter. “It’s Truth or Drink, right?” </p><p>“That’s not how it--”</p><p>“I’ll buy you a drink,” the first mech with the unfortunate paint job piped up. “Yo, Swerve! Over here! We got another player, fresh metal!”</p><p>“Comin’ right up, Doubletap. So who’s our latest vic<em>ohnoit's</em><b><em>you</em></b>.”</p><p>Starscream gave Swerve the same menacingly sweet smile as last time. “It's me. Hi again, sweetspark. Was I missed?”</p><p>“Like a scraplet infestation,” Swerve smiled right back, faceplate swiftly draining of energon. “What’ll it be?”</p><p>Between ruining the dispensary and now, this was the most fun Starscream could recall having in ages. “How about Nightmare Fuel? Sounds right up my landing strip, don’t you think?” the Seeker demurred, optics dim and sultry. Chin cradled on intertwined digits, Starscream fluttered his wings and relaxed the hostility out of his smirk, trading it for something more seductive. He rested his turbines on the bartop and gave the fan blades a soft little half-spin.</p><p>Energon came rushing back to Swerve’s face at the same time that it looked like it was choking his intake; Starscream didn’t know if the little Autobot was going to puke or faint. They both sounded equally amusing and either would have vastly improved his mood. Sadly neither came to pass, though the minibot did produce his chosen refreshment. Doubletap handed over a couple shanix, passing Starscream the glass, and Swerve retreated to a stepladder by the massive dispensers flanking the back wall of the bar.</p><p>Standing atop it he raised his hands to his impressively wide intake and said in a booming voice, “Alright! The next topic to get everyone good and drunk or hot and bothered is: <em> who was the last mech or femme you ‘faced </em>!” </p><p>Irritated groans rose up the nanosecond he shut his mouth, matched in equal volume by some extremely enthusiastic cheers. Half the crowd started talking at once, denouncing such low hanging fruit as a ploy to get mecha to drink or confess, while the other half laughed themselves stupid, pointing out the guilty parties pink with indignation they were almost certainly about to publicly out as their most recent lay.</p><p>For Starscream, who had come with the intention to make a spectacle of himself while further poisoning his fuel lines with barely processable engex, no better topic existed. Plus the pain in his valve was getting harder to ignore, and nothing shut the body up faster than triple-filtered high octane alcohol. Deciding no time like the present, Starscream raised his glass to his lips, only for Swerve to come barreling over, fear forgotten, waving his hands furiously.</p><p>“Hey, hey! No freebies! You gotta get asked first, <em> then </em> you can fess up or drink up, those are the rules!”</p><p>“Ah yes, of course, law and order,” Starscream sighed. “Where would our charming society be without it? Very well.” </p><p>Without another word he climbed on hands and knees right up onto the counter,  accompanied by grunts of annoyance intermingled with shouts of surprise, wings catching a few mechanisms across the face and shoulders, and planted his aft firmly between several mecha’s drinks. It parted the gathered populace, all of which looked like they’d rather lick the floor than consume anything <em> near </em> the ex-Decepticon commander--save for that one mech, still lewdly staring--and that suited Starscream fine. </p><p><em> Looking is free, but touch me and I'll make you pay. </em>He crossed his legs neatly and regarded Swerve from on high, wings low and out of the way so he could get a good look at the minibot’s face. It was an expression that didn’t disappoint.</p><p>Perched like a king on his throne the stage was set, and all optics were on him, the new inarguable center of attention--just the way Starscream liked it.</p><p>
  <em> Perfect.  </em>
</p><p>“Well, go on.” He swirled his Nightmare Fuel, feigning indifference, as if whatever he chose to say or do wasn’t going to blow the mind of every Autobot in the room. “Ask away, bartender.”</p><p>Swerve, mutually emboldened by the Seeker’s brazen behavior, cocked his helm defiantly with a cheeky grin. “Alright Screamer, you asked for it. Truth or Drink: who was the last person you banged panels with?”</p><p>Starscream hadn’t even opened his mouth before someone spoke for him.</p><p>“Oh c’mon, we all know it’s Megatron!” some whiny sounding grounder in purple and orange called out.</p><p>“Huffer’s right, it’s obviously buckethead,” <em>another</em> mech sporting far too much orange added.</p><p><em> What is it with Autobots and orange? </em> Starscream blanched internally. <em> If Sunstorm couldn’t make it look good, </em> <b> <em>no one</em> </b> <em> can.  </em></p><p>“What about Overtake?” Doubletap said from the ex-’Con’s right. He’d taken up occupation of a bar stool someone else had abandoned in their haste to get away from Starscream. Overlord’s less impressive doppelganger signaled to the white and blue minibot across the way, the one who’d just finished his turn at Truth or Drink. “Tailgate, you were there the same time as them the other night, did it look like they were leaving to go frag when they left?”</p><p>“Absolutely,” the minibot called Tailgate said primly. His visor flashed with a familiar light Starscream could clock a mile away--Soundwave used to get the same look whenever Thundercracker walked into the command bridge. "I know a revved up jet when I see one."</p><p>"Overtake didn't kiss and tell?" Another voice chimed, incredulous.</p><p>"I mean he says they fragged and he <em> does </em> look clawed to the Well and back, but who listens to Overtake?"</p><p>"Yeah, but who listens to <em> Starscream</em>?" Huffer called, and the bar erupted into laughter.</p><p>"Mech's gotta point!"</p><p>"Yeah!"</p><p>"Heh, good one," Swerve snickered behind the bar.</p><p>“<b><em>If you’re all finished</em></b>?!” Starscream interrupted, signature grating screech working wonders at cowing the rest of the bar into pained silence. A couple mecha had their servos crammed against their audials, faces drawn into agonized winces; the rest either just shuttered their optics at him or glared, intakes firmly shut. Satisfied, Starscream waited a klik to see if anyone else had any pressing last minute opinions they just <em> had </em> to share. When none came he smiled again. </p><p>“I didn’t frag Overtake,” the Seeker declared, “let’s start there. <em> He </em> fragged <em> me. </em>”</p><p>“Same diff,” some <em> other </em> mech with too much orange on him snorted. </p><p>“Rollout’s right, what’s the difference?”</p><p>Starscream rolled his optics. How had the Autobots won anything, let alone an entire war, with such pitiful excuses for comprehension skills? Primus only knew. “The difference is clearly too complex and obviously eludes you, but for simplicity’s sake let’s call it semantics.” He’d need to actually start drinking before he’d dream of lecturing any Autobots on the intricate concept of <em> consent</em>.</p><p>“How about you just get on with it?”</p><p>“Ain’t got all night, Screamy!”</p><p>“Speak your truth or chug your drink,” Swerve grinned, polishing a glass with a haughtiness Starscream wouldn’t have thought him capable of.</p><p>“Very well,” the Seeker conceded as if put-upon, secretly luxuriating in the bittersweet nostalgia of delivering lines to a waiting crowd, tactfully pretending the memories of what he’d lost to indulge in this hollow imitation of power weren’t tearing his spark apart. “To answer the question with technical accuracy, the last mech <em> I </em> interfaced with wasn't Megatron <em> or </em> Overtake. It was Deadlock.”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>A <em> stunned </em> silence, Starscream was pleased to note.</p><p>The sound of a glass shattering broke it a nanosecond later, startling a handful of mechs; one or two weapons systems could be heard powering on in the vacuum Starscream’s words had created, then quickly shut down in embarrassment.</p><p>Doubletap was gazing up at him, optics huge. “No,” he said, an outright refusal.</p><p>“Yes,” Starscream disagreed gleefully, field flushing with a pride he just couldn’t help, along with several other emotions he coldly disregarded. “Megatron’s favorite pet assassin.”</p><p>“No, no way.” That time it was Swerve. “There’s lying, and then there’s <em> lying. </em>That’s gotta be one of the worst you’ve ever come up with, Screamer.”</p><p><em> I don’t recall chatting with </em> <b> <em>you</em> </b> <em> on the battlefield, </em> Starscream wanted to spit at him. <em> So shut your intake before I shut it for you! </em> Another gory fantasy was briefly entertained of smashing the glass in Swerve’s hands and <em> punching </em> the jagged shards down his throat, all the way to the elbow. It took the edge off the jet’s next reply.</p><p>“I picked up a filthy habit on Cybertron after the war, something called honesty,” Starscream sniffed, looking down his nose at the minibot. “You might remember it’s what landed me here, in your <em> fine </em> establishment. Now as you all know, I’m very proud of my silver glossa, and I wouldn’t waste a chance to use it if I actually had anything to hide--the primary motivation for lying, in my experience. Since the point of this quaint little game is to drink instead of tell the truth, don’t you think I’d rather enjoy my engex than waste my breath?”</p><p>Swerve opened his intake. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again.</p><p>“That’s a good point,” Tailgate said. “Lying isn’t as much fun as drinking. In <em> my </em> experience,” he added, slightly quieter.</p><p>“Fine, fine, fair enough,” Swerve gave up. “Who wants to go--”</p><p>“Was he any good in berth?” Rollout interrupted suddenly. Then clarified, “Deadlock, I mean.”</p><p>“That’s not how the game works,” Huffer sighed, faceplate in his palm, a hint of a whine in his vocoder.</p><p>“No no, I wanna hear this too,” Doubletap cut in.</p><p>“What? Why?!” An aquatic-looking mech shouted in affront from a side-table.</p><p>“Riptide, mech, c’mon, when was the last time you talked to someone that ever met Deadlock, let alone <em> fragged </em> him?”</p><p>“Uh, never?”</p><p>“Exactly!”</p><p>A tentative murmur of agreement swept through the bar. Starscream blinked and looked out at a sea of blue and yellow optics, all watching him with a new kind of intensity. The disgust was still there, oh yes, more prevalent than before even, but now it was mixed in with a morbid sort of intrigue. </p><p>They looked at him the same way spectators looked at the aftermath of a fatal raceway collision--incapable of looking away, too horrified to blink. But they just <em> had </em> to see.</p><p>Starscream didn’t blame them; his life often felt to him like one long, melodramatic soap opera holovid, and now here he and all his sordid episodes were, direct-to-buy and pay-per-view for the Autobot’s entertainment. It wasn’t everyday the most infamous Seeker who ever lived waltzed into the local bar talking about getting hot and slick for one of Megatron’s most beloved killing machines after all, and while insane space adventures were well and good fun, the crew of the <em> Lost Light </em> was clearly hard up for fresh, raunchy, forbidden berthroom tales to rev themselves up to.</p><p>“Deadlock… sufficed.” Starscream said dryly, uncrossing and crossing his legs again. After their ‘discussion’ in the washracks that morning he wasn’t in the mood to be especially complimentary. “Better than Megatron was, although that isn't saying much.”</p><p>“Primus, nobody wants to hear about how Megs was in bed,” Swerve gagged. “Seriously, eugh. And let me say that again, <em> eugh</em>.”</p><p>“Agreed,” Huffer grimaced. “Keep that slag to yourself, that’s disgusting!”</p><p>“No no, let him speak!” Rollout laughed, daring to sidle closer to where Starscream sat atop the counter. “I’ve <em> got </em> to hear this.”</p><p>Doubletap had leaned in a bit closer, too. “Ooh, same, same! Spill it, mech!” </p><p>Starscream noticed much of the room vacated by mecha with lesser constitutions was swiftly filling back up, empty space replaced by Autobots more curious than repulsed. Four million years of war be damned, mecha would <em> always </em> lust after the untouchable icons of the enemy faction, and Megatron was the subject of more unofficial, black market erotica than most. Loyalty was nothing in the face of macabre fascination <em> or </em> the whims of a throbbing array.</p><p>Starscream peered over his shoulder at Swerve, mouth slanting into a self-satisfied smile at the dawning realization in Swerve’s bright blue visor. Whatever control the minibot held was slipping fast, Truth or Drink quickly forgotten now that the ex-Decepticon SIC was there to hog the limelight and steal the show.</p><p>And if it was a show they wanted, it was a show they were going to get.</p><p>Starscream rose to his feet on the bartop, wings flared wide. Every optic, however acidic, was on him. "My fellow Cybertronians!" He announced in his best Emperor Perpetua voice, holding his glass high. "In the interests of democracy, let's put it to a vote--who wants to hear what the next inane question was poised to be?" </p><p>A smattering of servos raised or clapped, already obvious as the minority.</p><p>Starscream nodded in their direction, like this were a council meeting back on Cybertron and their vote was being counted for tallying in the upcoming proposal. Then he grinned at everyone else, favoring them with a beaming smile Rattrap had once described as, “Not <em> completely </em> off-putting, boss."</p><p>“As for the rest of you!” Starscream swept an arm out with a bow, gesturing to the remaining patrons with gracious elegance. “Who wants to hear how the <em> mighty Megatron </em> was as great at pleasing his lovers as he was at winning wars?”</p><p>The bar exploded into a veritable cacophony of cheers.</p><p>Starscream smiled, and took a long sip if his drink.</p><p>Who needed dignity, anyway?</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>----</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>[<em> Yo, oh-captain-my-captain, you’re never gonna believe this. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Oh ye of little faith! Hit me with it, Swerve. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Guess who just walked into my bar and started dishing out trivia about fragging Megatron. Go ahead. Guess. Guess! C’mon, I want you to guess. I </em> <b> <em>need</em> </b> <em> you to guess. </em>]</p><p>[...<em> oh shit. </em>]</p><p>[<em> That’s not a guess! </em>]</p><p>[<em> Swerve, are you seriously trying to tell me Megatron’s former second-in-command, </em> <b> <em>Starscream</em></b><em>, is in your bar, right now, telling everyone how the Slagmaker likes it in bed? Seriously?! </em>]</p><p>[<em> Hey, I told you in a very joking manner! ...But yes, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. </em>]</p><p>[<em> I--I don’t-- </em>]</p><p>[<em> Megs doesn’t eat valve, in case you were wondering. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Swerve, this is serious, I--wait, really? Huh, that’s... weird. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Is that weird? Not every bot is big on oral, ya know. </em>]</p><p>[<em> I just always kinda pictured him as a valve guy. </em>]</p><p>[<em> You pictured it, captain? </em>]</p><p>[<em> THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. Swerve, listen, if Megs finds out Screamer is in there spouting off about their old war-time sexcapades, who knows what he’ll do?! </em>]</p><p>[<em> Hmm, probably throw his vow of pacifism out the airlock and then Starscream’s mangled corpse right after it? </em>]</p><p>[<em> Maybe! I freely admit I actually have no clue what could happen for once! </em>]</p><p>[<em> Oh wow, that’s wild! ...Dang, should I do something? Like try to stop him? He’s charging one drink per invasive inquiry now and he’s had, like, fifteen drinks. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Primus Swerve, stop selling them then! </em>]</p><p>[<em> Alright, alright! Jeez! But when mechs start complaining-- </em>]</p><p>[<em> Relax, tell 'em it's Captain’s orders. Or blame Magnus, that usually works. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Done and done. So what are you gonna do? I'm currently operating under the assumption you're gonna do something, by the way. </em>]</p><p>[<em> I'm gonna go distract Megs, as a preemptive measure. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Frag, that's--actually a pretty good idea. </em>]</p><p>[<em> I was due for one. Keep me updated; Rodimus out. </em>]</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Starscream was beyond pain.</p><p>There was no energon left in his lines. He knew with blind certainty if someone slit his throat nothing would come out but pure Nightmare Fuel; for the first time since the war ended his tank was at capacity, all but overflowing back up his burning intake.</p><p>Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.</p><p>Someone pressed a fresh glass into his hand, he wasn’t sure who. All of his targeting systems had gone offline with the rest of his higher programming functions seven drinks or so ago, but whoever they were their field was warm, and that was all that mattered.</p><p>Swerve had long since kicked him off the counter, forcing him to relocate to the massive roundtable at the bar’s center where the dance floor usually was. Starscream had spread himself out on his back, draped shamelessly across the surface like a Golden Age consort of old engraved on a Primal temple wall. Mecha gathered around him, worshippers paying tribute, and he lapped up the booze and attention in equal measure.</p><p><em> I’m so fragging drunk I can barely breathe, </em> Starscream thought deliriously, dumping the fizzing concoction they’d brought him into his perpetually open mouth. The Seeker hadn’t left off spilling sordid secrets of the Decepticon high command’s boudoirs since his first glass, and he had no intention of stopping--nothing short of total processor failure could shut him up right then.</p><p>“Wow, you are <em> sad. </em> Like, I knew you were pathetic, but WOW.”</p><p>Or, that.</p><p>Starscream struggled to sit up, slopping half the high grade he’d just knocked back down the front of his cockpit. His bleary optics fought to focus, zooming in and out at blurs of color, until something big and blue and all angles came stumbling into his line of sight. A single massive spot of yellow, an encapsulated sun, seared through the Seeker’s drunken haze.</p><p>“Fuck me running,” Starscream whispered, shocked into ugly Earthen swears, “Whirl.”</p><p>How long had the ‘copter been there? He didn’t recall seeing him in the crowd when he’d first sauntered in hours ago, and a mug like Whirl’s was impossible to miss, with a history and reputation to match.</p><p>“I wouldn’t fuck you if you were th’ last fuckable thing to fuck,” Whirl slurred at him, “and neither would Megatron.”</p><p>Starscream’s jaw was on the floor. His gaggle of assembled mechs looked the same.</p><p>“Whirl!” Tailgate snapped, having joined the roundtable to hear Starscream’s stories a joor ago. The gangly mono-optic’d helicopter waved a claw in Tailgate’s direction, clearly not listening.</p><p>“I mean, look at you! Followed Megs <em> aaaaall </em> th' way here, and he ain’t gonna fuck you, and honestly, I don’t even blame him, ‘cause who <em> would</em>?” Whirl advanced on him, a claw crooked to point damningly at the mess Starscream had made of himself. </p><p>“Oh please,” Starscream scoffed. He swept a servo around him searching for something with more liquor in it and succeeded in knocking over multiple glasses. A technicolor sea of engex flooded the tabletop, sticky and bright. Starscream didn’t bother getting out of it, it was easier to dip his palm in it and bring it to his lips. He sucked the lukewarm fuel out of his finger joints and huffed a laugh somewhere in Whirl’s direction. “I could have any mechanism I wanted.”</p><p>“No you couldn’t,” Whirl said, optic curving into a sharp little sickle of cruel glee. “Cuz I know th' only mech you want is Drift, and he ain’t gonna fuck you, neither.”</p><p>Starscream’s tongue froze mid-lick, eyes wide. Whirl laughed a grating laugh, the best his downgraded voicebox could produce.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s right! I know! Half th' ship prob’ly does, th' way you two were going at it outside th' racks this morning.” Whirl’s voice took on a screech, his attempt at imitation. “<em>Love me as I loved you then or don’t love me at all~! </em> Isn’t that what you said? Well GUESS WHAT, he ain’t <em> never </em> gonna love you, ‘cause he’s all happy-happy playing house with Ratch, so now you’re stuck making a jackass of yourself, ‘cause neither of ‘em is gonna fuck you! You’re all used up.”</p><p>Starscream’s servo dropped back into the highgrade mix. Dimly he was aware Tailgate had gotten out of his seat and come around to grab at his friend, futilely clutching at his rotors and his hip components to try to drag him away. Whirl was truly blitzed and therefore an immovable object; Tailgate accomplished nothing but get jostled aside when Whirl unexpectedly surged forward, slamming his claws on the table and taking up every inch of Starscream’s personal space.</p><p>“This is a pretty respectable place now, and you’re fucking it up. Face it Screamer, you’re an <em> embarrassment</em>.”</p><p>Starscream could see nothing but bright yellow light. Whirl was close enough to kiss. </p><p>“I’m an embarrassment?” Starscream asked, soft and breathy. It fogged the ‘copter’s vision, but Whirl didn’t retreat. Brave and stupid with more engex than energon inside him, Starscream smirked at the Autobot. “I didn’t know that lamp you call a face was a <em> projector </em> too.”</p><p>He swiped his hand through the puddle of high grade he was sitting in and flicked it all off on Whirl’s optic, a giddy sneer splitting the Seeker’s face at the minute, instinctive flich Whirl made. “Awfully big talk coming from <em> you, </em> the prisoner-beating <em> cop</em>.”</p><p>The massive circle of yellow narrowed down to a frighteningly precise point. Starscream burst into a drunken, hiccuping peal of laughter. Rage was pouring off Whirl like he was a fountain built for the sole purpose, and this, <em> this, </em> was the spectacle Starscream had been waiting for. Around them the bar was silent--every single person save for them had stopped talking.</p><p>“That’s right, I know who you are,” he giggled, his smile wide and nothing but teeth. “Megatron told the world all about you in that wordy tome he likes to call <em> literature, </em> but he told me <em> soooooo </em> much more.” Starscream got on his hands and knees, and neon liquor trickled down his aft in shiny rainbow trails. “You <em> liiiiked </em> it, didn’t you? Hurting someone else, like they hurt poor you? Pit, it must have <em> really </em> pissed you off that I killed them, huh? The Senate? A dirty ‘Con like me, taking that away from you?”</p><p>Whirl was stock-still, but Starscream could feel what was simmering underneath. Every ounce of his self-preservation was screaming at him that he was provoking a predator with claws bigger than his and to <em> shut up </em> and <em> stop </em> and <em> run </em> and the Seeker did absolutely none of those things. Instead he flicked more bright pink engex onto Whirl’s face and laughed again with reckless abandon.</p><p>“Not that there was much to take--pitiful creature like you letting them chop you up like last week’s disposables, you’ve proven you <em> never </em> would have stood up to the Senate! Look at me? Look at <em> you</em>! The ruling class chewed you up and spat your sorry carcass out and I’ll bet you <em> thanked them for it</em>! What kind of coward takes their empurata lying down and then <em> works for the ones who did it</em>? To do their dirty work? Did they take your <em> spine, </em> too? Is that why you agreed to beat an innocent mech half to death? It make you feel <em> big, </em> Autob--”</p><p>Whirl punched him. <em> Hard. </em></p><p>It sent him flying, and pain finally broke through the wall of numbness inebriation had bought him. Patrons scattered; no one made an effort to catch him or break his fall. Starscream hit the floor faceplate first, clear on the opposite side of the table--Whirl’s blow had broken his nose and the landing didn’t do him any favors. A concussive burst of spots in his HUD along with a dozen alerts stole the precious few seconds he might have used to get his feet under him.</p><p>Whirl was on him in a nanosecond. Behind them the table sunk until it was level with the floor and the crowd had rushed back toward them, boxing them in together. The chanting for a fight started and grew in volume in such little time Starscream had barely drawn a ventilation since hitting the ground.</p><p>The crack in his helm was back with a vengeance. Whirl was poised to strike. Somewhere beyond the thrumming masses Swerve was taking bets.</p><p>It was everything Starscream had wanted. It was perfect. It was <em> sublime</em>.</p><p>Whirl swung again, catching the Seeker across the jaw. Dentae shattered. Starscream laughed and choked and spit his broken teeth out to laugh again. Whirl’s claw came down for round three and adrenaline overpowered the sluggish engex slowing Starscream’s module--he ducked his helm sideways and up and sunk his fangs into the soft metal flesh of Whirl’s pretty neck, and bit until his jaw audibly popped.</p><p>To the ‘copter’s credit, he didn’t cry out. Nothing but a guttural, muffled grunt, and then he had one set of pincers around Starscream’s neck and the other around a wing. The unspoken threat couldn’t have been plainer--Starscream saw Whirl’s bet and raised him his only optic, slamming his razor-tipped fingers into the crevice between glass and metal with intent.</p><p>A beat passed. Whirl let go of his wing, and Starscream pulled his mouth off the ‘copter.</p><p>“Smart bot,” he purred around a tongue heavy with blood. He dug his servo deeper into Whirl’s eye.</p><p>“Get your hand out of my optic, or I break your neck.” The pincer still cradling Starscream’s throat tightened hard enough to cut off energon flow. They were both blind drunk but Starscream knew he meant it. He almost ripped out Whirl’s eye anyway.</p><p>“Enough grappling like amateurs,” Starscream said, extricating his digits. “Let me up. I’ll give you the fight Megatron couldn’t--unless you’d prefer to brutalize another cold-construct at your mercy, <em> Autobot</em>?”</p><p>Whirl swayed on his pedes once he was standing again. “This ain’t about politics an’ you know it.” The fuel line the Seeker punctured gushed energon freely; it poured down Whirl’s side in a steady stream, pooling on the floor.</p><p>Starscream swayed too, until he was upright. The counterweight of his wings gave him a deceptive balance. “Everything is politics, and politics is everything. But you didn’t coldcock me to have a civil debate, did you?”</p><p>“Civil? Nah, not civil. Let’s debate th' old-fashioned way.” He clacked his claws together. “And after I win, you’re gonna take your sad sorry ass off this ship. <em> One </em> ex-genocidal maniac was already one too many, I ain't gonna sit here and watch a second drink all our booze and talk about sucking th' first one’s <em> spike</em>.”</p><p><em> Sounds political to me. </em> Starscream flexed his fingers, letting the light catch on his talons. “I can talk about all the other spikes I’ve sucked. One of the many perks of still having a <em> mouth, </em> you know.”</p><p>Whirl lunged.</p><p>And Starscream spun, catching Whirl with a roundhouse kick right in the helm. It wasn’t as elegant as what he could have done sober but it did its job, snapping the ‘copter’s head to side with a vicious <em> crack! </em> that dropped him as swiftly as if he were a puppet and Starscream had just cut his strings.</p><p>The chanting was replaced with gasps, startled exclamations, and furious hisses of expletives. Starscream once more held his hands aloft and walked in a wobbly circle around Whirl’s frame with bold, too-fast steps.</p><p>“Anybody else?!” He asked, grinning maniacally. “Huh?! Who else has some post-war hang-ups they want to address? Anybody? C’mon, don’t be <em> shy</em>! You lot certainly weren’t a few kliks ago!”</p><p>A claw closed around his ankle.</p><p>“Shut th’ fuck up, Starscream,” Whirl said, and yanked the Seeker right off his feet.</p><p>He socked Starscream in the gut on the way down--all the air in his vents evacuated him and he wheezed when his backstrut slammed into the ground for the second time. It might have provided the ‘copter another opening, if Starscream hadn't seen it coming. He was up and off the floor in a blink, drunkenness beginning to evaporate as battle-protocols bypassed his filter to online. Whirl’s claw swung down with devastating potential and Starscream batted it aside like it were sparkling’s play, redirecting the force behind the blow to the side. His knee took its place; he drove it into the lithe, unarmored protoform of Whirl’s svelte waist, knocking the vents out of <em> him, </em> and followed that up with a headbutt that crumpled the delicate metal prongs and entire front of Whirl’s helm casing like tin foil.</p><p>They broke apart, Whirl stumbling blindly back, far enough away to shake the light back into his eye. Starscream had hit it hard enough to knock it offline.</p><p>“Since when can <em> you </em> fight like that?!” Whirl demanded, sounding impossibly enraged and enraptured at the same time.</p><p>“Our revolution was built on the backs of slave gladiators,” Starscream sneered. “Of <em> course </em> I can fight. Who do you think <em> taught </em> me?”</p><p>He didn’t want to remember those first few centuries under Megatron’s unforgiving hand. He remembered regardless, because not even his own memory banks cared what he wanted.</p><p>He threw himself at Whirl and thought only of gunmetal grey as he ripped and slashed at an inferior blue, wishing against the unwishable that he could trade their places--Whirl deserved what he had coming but he wasn’t the one Starscream wanted to fight. This was the fight fate had granted him however, so he fought it tooth and nail, fought it like the warrior someone else had made of him safe in the knowledge he could never successfully turn it against them, and he fought to <em> win. </em></p><p>Once Whirl realized Starscream wasn’t fooling around, he re-doubled his efforts to hobble the Seeker. Starscream dedicated himself to tearing Whirl’s not-face out of his half-head.</p><p>The fight devolved hideously from there. All too soon it ceased to be a simple bar brawl, and the crowds stopped cheering or booing. They could only look on at the brutality unfolding. Swerve stayed behind the bar, no longer taking bets but speaking quietly and quickly into his comm just out of sight. Tailgate had fled, shouting that he was “going to get Cyc”. </p><p>Again, Starscream was beyond pain. Not for a lack of it; it was everywhere, inside and out. He hadn’t been in this much pain since he’d begged Megatron to kill him that last humiliating time, without a doubt. There was no part of him that wasn’t broken, shattered, bent, or rent from his body. His ventilations came in heavy coughs, wet and rattling--Whirl had ripped the turbines from his chassis while trying to crush his sparkchamber and the metal that was left was incapable of doing anything but suck energon into his cooling systems every time he tried to activate his fans. Gasping was instinctive and an acute agony without escape; he couldn’t stop or he’d overheat.</p><p>Whirl was in a similar state: rotor-less on his left side, a chopper blade that was nothing more than a bleeding stump, a cockpit twisted and bereft of all its glass save what the hollow of his chassis had caught when Starscream punched through, and one leg strut nothing but a blackened, twisted facsimile of a limb, melted by the heat of one of the Seeker’s thrusters. Whirl had gotten him back good for that one--Starscream’s right wing was holding on by a cluster of wires and a prayer, chewed through by bullets from the guns mounted in Whirl’s chest.</p><p><em> Let this end, </em> Starscream thought madly. He’d gotten his fill of blood and booze, yet he refused to submit. Without question, Whirl had to feel the same. The gangly mech could barely stand, and the fire in his optic burned brighter than ever before.</p><p>“Yield,” Starscream hissed.</p><p>“Eat shit an’ die,” Whirl spat.</p><p>He moved to sprint, to deliver that hopeful killing blow Starscream had been waiting for his whole life, and promptly fractured the brittle remains of his tortured leg-strut. Whirl went down with a surprised noise, and Starscream saw his chance.</p><p><em> Kill him and it won’t matter what started this, they’ll cast you out, </em> a voice too much like Thundercracker’s whispered.</p><p><em> He’s a bigger afthole than you are, you’d be doing these people a favor, </em> something a lot like Skywarp insisted.</p><p><em> They know not what they do, </em> an endlessly patient and kind shuttle reminded him from a life that almost was but never had been.</p><p>Starscream rushed the downed helicopter, talons out and raised high, out of his mind with pain and too drunk to think, caught up in the awful scenario he’d created, as helpless to stop it as he was eager to bring it to its inevitable fatal end, and the moment he was about to plunge his servo through Whirl’s smashed open chest the doors to the bar flew open and the crowd fell back, and both bloody and beaten mechs looked up to see who had come barging in at the climax of their impromptu deathmatch.</p><p>Standing in the entryway, a stricken look on his face, was Drift. Close behind was Rodimus, already calling for everyone to take it easy, and he was stopped in his tracks a second later by the sight that greeted him, causing Ultra Magnus to grind to a jarring halt against his spoiler.</p><p>And then two enormous black servos came into view and pushed all three of them carefully aside, and it was Megatron, as towering and calm in his authority as the last time Starscream had seen him, and he glared down at the Seeker, his former second-in-command, his <em> punching bag, </em> his <em> frag toy, </em> and the look of judgement in his unmoving ruby optics was enough to send the trembling jet to his knees.</p><p>“Starscream,” Megatron said, the first word he’d said to him since the trial, rumbling baritone vocoder slow and deep just as the Seeker remembered it, “Explain this. Now.”</p><p>Disobedient to the last, Starscream didn’t.</p><p>His helm hit the floor before he realized he was blacking out. The last thing he saw was Drift too slow to catch him, but still racing forward to try.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Aeonian</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Me.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A few notes: this is the chapter that changed the rating. It features one fairly explicit sex scene, mentions of sex work, and Megatron's general indecency. </p><p>The song Starscream dances to is "Sparks (Turn Off Your Mind)" the Atmozfears &amp; Audiotricz Radio mix.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Command arrived with the maimed bodies of the ones responsible for the bar fight, no one was particularly surprised to see Whirl getting carted in on Ultra Magnus’ shoulder, broken and missing limbs. Starscream however, carried bridal-style by Megatron--with a silent but visibly furious Drift close at his back--was <em> infinitely </em> more shocking.</p><p>They didn’t waste any time asking any pointless questions. Ratchet and First Aid split the repairs between them, wordlessly agreeing who would take who: Aid on Whirl, already familiar with the ex-Wrecker’s parts and methods of reassembly, and Ratchet with Starscream, who was no expert on Seekers but knew far more than the younger medic. Velocity assisted them both, dancing between operating tables as her servos were needed, pinching energon lines and passing tools, while the drones buzzed about fetching spare parts and replacing energon drips as they emptied.</p><p>Outside the medbay Drift waited, tense and wordless, exuding a mixture of confusion and cold fury. </p><p>Cyclonus and Tailgate stood across from him, talking through comms to keep the minibot’s story private. Cyclonus was told by his conjunx all that befell the ‘copter, and didn’t once spare a look at Drift. </p><p>That suited the swordsmech just fine. <em> Tailgate </em> looked at him often though, and for much too long, a knowing glow in his visor that Drift didn’t understand and suspected he wouldn’t like if he did.</p><p>Rodimus and Ultra Magnus managed to corral Megatron back to his office after leaving Starscream in the medbay, where the three of them began the excruciating process of figuring out just what in the Pit had happened, and what they were going to do about it. When Megatron wasn't looking, the two Autobots shared a wary look.</p><p>Swerve cleaned up his bar. Doubletap and Huffer helped, with only minimal complaining.</p><p>Deep in medically induced stasis, cut open and bare for what had to be the thousandth time in his life, Starscream dreamt.</p><p>Like a buffer against letting what had just transpired take hold in his offline processor, memory files started to replay.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Cybertron, pre-war.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He's on stage. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Lights strobe from the ceiling in kaleidoscopic colors, aimed to catch on his curves and angles, highlight them perfectly and reflect back onto the faces of the frag-hungry patrons in the front row. He moves, and the colors move with him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The bass pulses through him like an earthquake. He shakes apart with it to the beat of the music--arms thrown out, pedes stomping, hips thrusting--all while he watches out for the shanix littering the floor. Stepping on one hurts like slag, and he doesn't want to risk denting any digging them out of his heels. They need every single cent. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Rent. Tuition. Repairs. The list goes on, and what’s lying in front of him is not nearly enough.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream jumps, ignites his thrusters, spins in the air, then cuts them right before he lands in a split and grinds his panel into the stage. The crowd hoots and hollers and tosses some more cash at him, a life-giving rain of glitter.  </em>
</p><p><em> It’s his last dance of the night and he </em> <b> <em>needs</em> </b> <em> this. Starscream busts out all the choreography he’s bothered to memorize since taking this slagheap of a job. Scales and slides down the pole in center stage upside down. Crawls on hands and knees to the edge of the stage and lets some purple and yellow miner deposit a meager tip right into his cockpit.  </em></p><p>
  <em> The song reaches its crescendo. Finally. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream struts to the beat. He rocks his pelvis in time with the pulses of flashing light and sound as he shamelessly strokes his servos over his body. Then he kneels facing the crowd, dips his fingertips in between the fan blades of his turbines and spins them manually. Sloooowly. </em>
</p><p><em> Intake open, optics rolling into the back of his head, he revs his jet engine and twitches his wings and he </em> <b> <em>moans</em></b><em>.  </em></p><p>
  <em> This time he feels the shanix hit him and bounce off--amongst other things. He tries to ignore that. It’s expected. A compliment, really. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And also inconsequential. He’s going under solvent before flying home anyway, he’ll die before he lets someone see him in his stage makeup outside the club. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The track ends, and another begins--placeholder music until the next dancer arrives. Starscream sashays gracefully down the steps, his money crammed into his subspace, and beelines for the backstage door. He makes it all of ten steps. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Hey gorgeous,” a greasy two-wheeler calls. He tries to loop his arm around Starscream’s waist. Starscream makes avoiding it look coy instead of repulsed. “Loved your performance. How much do I gotta pay for you to moan like that back at my place?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream titters behind his hand. He imagines putting his thrusters to the two-wheeler's smarmy grin and incinerating it from his faceplate. Maybe tell him to fuck off, at least. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Not a possibility, sadly. He can’t afford to lose this job. Academy fees aren’t cheap. He’s barely covering tuition as it is, and after everything he’s done to earn his place in Iacon, he’s not about to discard it just to lay out one horny customer. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Plus there’s their broken energon dispenser to think about, missing a part Starscream doesn’t have the expertise to craft on his own yet. The solvent heater that hasn’t worked in orns, something Skywarp complains about daily. The single berth they take turns recharging on. The meds for Thundercracker’s rust infection they haven't been able to buy. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And everything else he’s forgetting, fraying his wires at both ends. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He's hungry and tired and his pedes are killing him. His hot-pink temporary paint starts to itch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Four thousand for the night,” Starscream smiles, “and handsome, I’ll make any sound you want.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s TC’s turn to use the berth, anyway. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Vos, pre-war.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Skyfire is standing next to him on the balcony of the shuttle’s dormitory. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He asks what Starscream thinks about the day’s work on their most recent project. Starscream says nothing, because he’s a lovesick fool who can’t process when Skyfire’s hand is this close to his. He dedicates every detail to memory. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Chipped paint. A scuff on Skyfire’s inner wrist--incident with a malfunctioning rotary saw, luckily on its lowest setting. His servo is twice the size of Starscream’s. Is it twice as gentle? Skyfire is so careful and precise in the labs, he hasn’t broken anything in vorns. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Their pinkies touch when the shuttle leans over to ask if Starscream is listening, and he’s pretty sure his entire sensornet combusts simultaneously.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What?” he asks stupidly. Starscream snaps his optics away from his lab partner’s finger and blinks uselessly up at the shuttle like the hopeless idiot he is. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Skyfire smiles. Wraps his pinkie delicately around Starscream’s. Laughs, all soft and kind like only he can. The blue of his optics puts the night sky behind them to shame. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream swallows hard.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> His spark is going to implode. He’s never been more sure of anything. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Skyfire, I--" </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He's a coward in the face of happiness. He panics and slams his intake shut. Tries to turn and leave and spare the shuttle from--from <strong>him</strong>.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Skyfire holds him fast by the finger.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's alright," Skyfire says, making it true simply by saying it. "I know." </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Because he does. Because he's the smartest person Starscream has ever met.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He's smarter than Starscream will ever be.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This is his first real kiss.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> First Cycle 3179.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Simanzi. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’s high, high above the floodwaters. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Miles below and far ahead, the frontliners are slogging through the sludge, either four-wheeling through or wading on foot. Every now again they hit the shallows made by the natural rise and fall of their planet’s surface, and they emerge from the water slickened with muck and grime. Even the brightest colors are muted and stained by the mud. </em>
</p><p><em> Starscream, flanked by his trine on either side, is spotless. He intends to stay that way, for the whole slagging campaign, if he can; the only way anyone is getting him down there in that </em> <b> <em>filth</em> </b> <em> is if someone blows him out of the sky, and the Autobots don’t have that kind of ground-to-air firepower, nor any snipers proficient enough to shoot him from so great a distance. </em></p><p>
  <em> The Wreckers are still ignoring Simanzi--precious Perceptor, beloved Autobot sharpshooter, isn’t here to save them from the Seekers. </em>
</p><p><em> Starscream laughs. He lets every Decepticon tuned to their inter-faction frequency hear it. Variety is the spice of the responses: grunts of acknowledgement that a superior officer said something over the radio, respectful silence, </em> <b> <em>dis</em></b><em>respectful silence, several snarks about how ‘it’s easy to laugh when you’re not the one grinding your gears in this nasty slag’, and a few dark laughs mirroring his own. </em></p><p>
  <em> Most come from his armada. Not surprising. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They’re all taking a particular joy in watching the ground-pounders flail around in the muck. With matters like this, it’s all about the air superiority. </em>
</p><p><em> They </em> <b>are</b> <em> the air superiority. </em></p><p>
  <em> Megatron sends him a private comm, informing him it’s time for their next push. The Autobot frontline is fractured, spread too thin. What mecha remain to hold it are tired, hungry, and wounded; Spec Ops is doing a phenomenal job of seizing any aid or medics sent up from the rear. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Struggling little soldiers, so weak and easy to kill. Too easy. It's almost sad. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But there's not much for it. Simanzi stopped being a proper battle a long time ago. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Now it’s just a slaughter. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream signals for his trine to increase speed and fan out, and the three of them shriek across the sky, the rest of the armada in hot pursuit. They cut through the gunsmoke and smog shrouding the battlefield in darkness, malevolent flagships of war in their own right, and they herald the oncoming battalions racing parallel to them down below. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They hit the Autobots running.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s a massacre. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s disgusting. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s genocide. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s unworthy of being called a victory. Megatron calls it that anyway, when he comms Starscream to lead their army through the remains of the Autobot defenses. Starscream agrees on both points, because he doesn’t want to ruin his glorious leader’s good humor. </em>
</p><p><em> Or risk his wrath. He’s tired of it. Tired of pretending to like it. Tired of remembering he </em> <b> <em>used</em> </b> <em> to like it. Like he’s tired of the constant one-sided decimations of their species. Not that he holds any great sympathy for the Autobots or their wholesale suffering--this is just getting awfully tedious. </em></p><p>
  <em> He wants the war to be done. He wants to get to where Soundwave can't hear him and call Deadlock. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Mostly he just wants a shower; his vent filters reek of sea scum. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> [ Satisfactory, Starscream, ] Megatron congratulates him over their private comms, and nothing in his words themselves give away the true meaning behind the praise. It’s how he says it.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> In what seems impossible for his physiology, Starscream manages to shudder in alt-mode. He wonders if he can puke as a jet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> [ Thank you, my liege, ] he purrs back. Unlike Megatron, his tone betrays nothing. Finessed down to a fine art and rehearsed like a script, he gives the gunformer everything he wants to hear and more. Doles out the praise, feigns humbleness, promises to meet the warlord in his quarters and show him just how 'satisfactory' he can be. All the usual slag he does not mean, and never will. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Miles below, the Decepticon war machine tramples the graying husks of the enemy. Dead and dying Autobots bob in the brackish waters, mouths filling with silt as they sink. Warp and TC comment on the unexpected buoyancy of certain Cybertronian corpses. All three Seekers laugh as an aquatic mech, killed in alt-mode, becomes someone's improvised paddle boat. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Megatron messages him some more private, salacious nonsense. Skywarp excitedly asks if TC knows how long until the next siege. Thundercracker says he probably won't have to wait long, the war is all but won. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream sets a reminder in his queue not to refuel when they get back to the ship. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Less to throw up later.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p><em> The </em> Nemesis<em>, mid-war.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He’s in berth.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Warm. So warm. And heavy. An arm is around his middle. Not his. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Not alone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream goes stiff, vents stalling; Deadlock grumbles behind him, starting to lift his arm away.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “M’not him,” he mutters, half in recharge. "S'just me." Starscream lets out a ventilation, relaxes. The pressure of Deadock’s arm returns. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Right. Deadlock. He's in Deadlock’s quarters. They spent the night together. Again. He's still… getting used to that. Getting used to powering on next to someone else. Someone besides his trine. </em>
</p><p><em> Someone besides </em> <b> <em>him</em></b><em>. </em></p><p>
  <em> A hand passes over his cockpit, lazy, slow. Unassuming, for now. “Memory flux?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream forces himself not to shiver. Forces himself not to think about the contents of his defrag, and instead thinks about the way Deadlock's servo feels against the glass of his cockpit: steady, familiar… and for only him, completely harmless. Starscream presses himself up and into that palm.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He doesn't want to talk about it. He'd rather feel, and about literally anything else. </em>
</p><p><em> “No. Forget it. Just… just keep doing </em> <b> <em>that</em></b><em>. And lower.” A demand. An invitation. A plea.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Deadlock hums, unconvinced but agreeable in his post-recharge haze, and his hand slides lower. “If y’say so, Star.” </em>
</p><p><em> He does say so. He’ll repeat it as many times as it takes to make it true. Those events, those memories, they don’t exist, they didn’t happen, they aren’t </em> <b> <em>real</em></b><em>. Starscream refuses. </em></p><p>
  <em> Deadlock, on the other hand, he does not refuse. He spreads his thighs to give the gunslinger more room to work and is rewarded with the low, pleased rumble of an engine against his backstrut. Starscream’s breath comes out ragged when Deadlock’s servo meets his interface panel--he opens for him immediately, still wet from their first ‘facing a few joors ago, still ready, and two of Deadlock’s fingers slip inside as smooth as silk. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “More,” the Seeker rasps, barely louder than a whisper. “I n-need--” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Shhh.” Deadlock hushes, sitting up off the wing he’d been lying on. He props himself up on his palm to watch Starscream's face in the dark as he slowly pumps his digits in and out of the swiftly heating valve. “I know what you need. I'm gonna make you forget all about that 'bad dream'.Yeah? You want that?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Not just pillowtalk. An actual question. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Shut u-up,” Starscream manages. He bucks his pelvis up to meet the assassin's thrusts--the closest he knows to saying yes. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> A nanoklik of silence--Deadlock nods, satisfied. He shifts, urges the jet onto his back, and settles against his side close enough to seal their mouths together, and starts to really fuck Starscream open in earnest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream cries out, hips jerking; his whole frame goes molten at once. Deadlock swallows the noise, swallows it so no one passing outside might overhear, and adds another finger to milk more consumable pleasure from the Seeker. The idling of their engines is muted, and so the wet sound of a slick valve getting slowly but thoroughly wrecked is over-loud in the quiet of their space.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock dips his thumb into the lubricant pooling on his servo, and rubs feather-light circles into Starscream’s anterior node, hot pink and swollen with energon, slowly increasing the pressure until the Seeker whines. He curls his digits on the up-stroke as he does it, and Starscream moans brokenly into Deadlock's smirking intake, all but undone. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “That’s it,” Deadlock breathes, pulling his mouth away to whisper against Starscream’s audial. “That’s it, sweetspark.” His thumb makes another persistent circuit over the swollen node, and it drags a desperate, hastily muffled keen from the Air Commander.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He smells ozone. Lubricant is dripping from his valve lips and onto the berth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “‘Lock,” Starscream pants, plating so hot it starts to steam. His vents cycle like he's dying, all of which are open to their max setting--Deadlock’s room isn’t huge, and with two speed-based frames heating up, the temperature of the air around them climbs fast. A drop of condensation gathers on the speedster’s upper lip, and he licks it away. </em>
</p><p><em> “Love the way you sound when I frag you,” Deadlock grins, presses an open-mouth kiss to the side of Starscream’s throat. It’s the opposite side of where his claiming scar is hidden; he bites at the sensitive bundle of wires and cables under the Seeker’s chin, revving in approval when Starscream flat-out </em> <b> <em>whimpers</em></b><em>.  </em></p><p>
  <em> His fingers speed up, and he presses just a little more firmly on that oversensitive node, just enough that Starscream writhes underneath him--but still gentle, always gentle, the only way the Seeker can actually get off--and he feels when the calipers deep inside start to clench and flutter; sees the way Starscream's abdominal plates go taut and his thighs tremble. Hears his vents quicken. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Soooo close," Deadlock says, kissing his way back up to the jet's gasping intake. "Can feel you shaking." In the darkness the only light is their optics, and Starscream's red is whiting out, taking his vision with it. Overload is so close he can taste it.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He wants it. Wants it madly. Wants it so bad it hurts. Wants it with Deadlock.  </em>
</p><p><b> <em>Only</em> </b> <em> Deadlock. Forever and ever, as long as he lives.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Fangs prick an energon line, cut it open the minimal width to encourage a bleed, and it's the tender sting of Deadlock's oral fluid seeping into the cut as he laps the fuel away that sends Starscream toppling over the edge. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>His back arches; all his cables tense at the same time his plating clamps down tight--Deadlock just barely gets their mouths back together before Starscream's ecstatic cry of completion comes tearing out of him. It hits the back of the assassin's intake, that traitorous noise of having enjoyed something without reservation--the kind of noise Starscream hates himself for making, without understanding at all why--and Deadlock drinks it up, draws it out and away from him, like poison from a vein. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock works him through the pulsing dregs of his overload, fingers slower and softer, until Starscream's mewling and twitching dies down, and finally he takes his servo back to see the mess he's made. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Starscream is in shambles. He shivers still in the afterglow, legs splayed open obscenely, pistons loose and joints pliable. All the tension is gone from his frame, as well as all the lingering shadows of the nightmare that darkened his faceplate. His arms, previously thrown above his head in surrender, slowly fall back to his chassis as he brings his ventilations under control. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deadlock is staring at him, two yellow stars in the void. His expression is dangerously seditious, it's so fond. He helps Starscream to gently snap his interface panel shut, and rearranges him onto his side again on the berth.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> His backstrut is to the wall. Deadlock puts himself between the jet and the door; a barrier, an obstacle. Something someone would have to go through if they wanted to get to the Seeker. </em>
</p><p><em> Starscream, already flushed, feels himself heat again. He finds the crook of Deadlock's neck and shoulder armor where he knows the claiming scar </em> <b> <em>he</em> </b> <em> made is hidden, and buries his faceplate in it. </em></p><p>
  <em> His arm is the one to drape this time. He keeps his claws retracted. Runs his palm over the warm metal housing Deadlock's spark, protecting it. Feels it beat.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Warm. Heavy. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Safe. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Your shift on the bridge starts in a joor, yeah?" Deadlock murmurs in the dark. His hand covers Starscream's. "Recharge, Star." </em>
</p><p><em> He's safe. He is. As safe as he's ever going to be in this war, really. Deadlock is between him and every other mech on the ship. It doesn't matter that Deadlock can't actually protect him from--from </em> <b> <em>him</em></b><em>. It doesn't. </em></p><p>
  <em> What matters is Starscream knows Deadlock would try. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There's something he knows he ought to say while the mech lying in front of him is still around to hear it. Something he missed the chance to tell Skyfire, something very important. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He doesn't say it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eventually, he shutters his optics. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He dreams of a gunslinger, instead of the gun. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>Ratchet was halfway through having all his surgical instruments a shiny, sparkling silver when he happened to glance over and notice Starscream was up and alert. And <em> looking </em> at him.</p><p>His optics were hazy from the mild sedative running through his lines, but not so hazy he didn't recognize who he was looking at. They narrowed the second Ratchet met his glare.</p><p>"Oh, you're awake. Good."</p><p>A halfhearted ex-vent, followed by silence.</p><p><em> Off to a great start. </em> Ratchet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. <em> Here we go. </em></p><p>It was the moment he’d dreaded since Megatron carried the slagheaded little glitch into his medbay two joors ago. Pit, Starscream could have been onlined and kicked out as soon as his repairs were completed, it wasn’t as if any of the damage he’d sustained had been life threatening. Letting him sleep was just… easier. Ratchet thought he ought to feel guilty about putting off the Seeker’s leaving, but he had a much stronger feeling Starscream was as loath to get up and start answering questions as Ratchet was to ask them.</p><p>There wasn’t any ideal way to approach… <em> this</em>. Ratchet gave it the ol’ Academy try anyway.</p><p>"Well, you weren't kidding."</p><p>Starscream blinked up at him with tired, suspicious optics.</p><p>"About getting difficult." Ratchet took a seat on his examination stool, wheeling it to face the jet. He tried to keep his expression neutral. “You’ve kept me here long after my shift ended, you broke Whirl into pieces, and you wrecked Swerve’s dancefloor. Congrats, you’re officially a <em> problem </em>.”</p><p>After Starscream’s original bit of gloating during his first stay in the infirmary, Ratchet expected the Seeker to smirk and start getting quippy with some scathing remarks, or at the very least snicker at the general misfortune he’d caused mecha that weren’t him, his asinine goals accomplished.</p><p>Starscream only scoffed quietly. “I wasn’t before?”</p><p>Ratchet frowned. It wasn’t as if he could disagree; in his worldview, Starscream had never been anything <em> but </em> a problem. Honestly, ‘problem’ was possibly the most succinct description in existence for the Seeker. Probably also the kindest.</p><p>Ratchet thought about what Drift had told him just a night ago, engex glass clasped tight in his unsteady hand. </p><p>About the war, and Starscream, and how it had brought the two ‘Cons together. His processor supplied unwanted images of imagined recreations of the things Drift had described, and the implication of what led to those things made them that much more abominable.</p><p>He thought of how Megatron had carried the unconscious Seeker; how Rodimus and Magnus had to <em> convince him </em> to put Starscream down and leave to review the footage from the bar. He thought of Drift, poised in the ex-warlord’s shadow, EM burning with barely restrained rage, servos kept carefully away from the hilts of his swords.</p><p><em> I swore to always watch his back, </em> Drift had said. <em> And I abandoned him. </em> </p><p>Drift’s explanations kept running through the medic’s head as he stared down at the Seeker. <em> He kept me off the List, Ratchet.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Denied one form of self-destruction, he inevitably goes in search of another.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Kindred spirits, in the worst possible way.  </em>
</p><p>Ratchet’s optics fell to where he knew a scar in the shape of Deadlock’s teeth hid beneath red plating. A scar Starscream had shoved in Ratchet’s face to prove some obscene point that had made no sense at the time; even more bizarre was the way Starscream had smiled when he touched it. <em> Too genuine. Too soft. </em> It had shocked the medic to see that kind of emotion from <em> Starscream </em> of all people, and it left him feeling unmoored by the situation.</p><p>Whatever the whole claiming thing <em> was, </em> whatever Drift and Starscream had shared, it was obvious it had been a lot more than casual fragging and watching each others’ backs.</p><p>Learning the intricacies of Drift’s past as Deadlock had never been easy. His history was dark and ugly--his hands were steeped in the fuel of Ratchet’s friends and comrades. Deadlock had executed Autobot prisoners, tortured information out of the mecha he’d been sent to kill, and put bullets through the optics of soldiers while they begged for their lives. The list of the assassin’s monstrosities was not a short one.</p><p>So why did the idea of Deadlock being anything <em> but </em> a monster unsettle him so much more?</p><p>“Take a screen capture,” came Starscream’s raspy voice, dragging Ratchet out of his thoughts. “I’ve heard they last longer.”</p><p>Ratchet sighed again. “Starscream, I’m going to ask you something, and it’s definitely going to torque you off, but I need you to tell me the truth.”</p><p>“Every word you say ‘torques me off’,” Starscream muttered, without a hint of vitriol. “The last time I offered you answers you told me nothing I said could be believed.”</p><p>“It can’t,” Ratchet agreed. “I’ll ask Drift the same thing after I leave here, see what lines up and what doesn’t.”</p><p>Starscream groaned, optics shuttered tight. He dragged his servos over his face and left them there, a growl slowly building in his engine. “Then why not just ask <em> him, </em> and spare us both this--this <em> whatever </em> this is? An interrogation? Are you trying to <em> interrogate </em> me?”</p><p>“No, I’m not trying to interrogate you. I’m giving you the chance to explain what I--” Ratchet paused, took a vent, “--what I didn’t want to hear. Before. About you, and about Drift. About what you were.”</p><p>Starscream’s fingers twitched. He was silent for a klik. “Drift said he told you. About <em> us</em>,” he hissed.</p><p>Ratchet threaded his digits together to rest his chin on. “He did. And you know what? I don’t think either of you have lied to me yet. But,” he said, leaning in just a fraction closer to the Seeker, “I don’t think I’m getting the whole truth, either.”</p><p>Two of Starscream’s fingers parted; a searing slit of red peered back at Ratchet from between them. The sheer <em> intensity </em> of the Seeker’s eye boring into him was almost enough to make Ratchet sit back--almost.</p><p>“Do you know what <em> I </em> think?” Starscream asked, dropping his servos and heaving himself up off the berth, “<em>I </em> think you already know the truth, you miserable slagheap.” </p><p>Ratchet sputtered, indignant. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“You’re stupid, but you’re not <em> that </em> stupid. You know deep down in your ancient slagging spark and in your dusty rotten CPU <em> what we were. </em> You know it as well as you know your <em> moronic </em> Autobot code forwards and back,” Starscream spat. The sedatives had run their course and the flier was rapidly regaining his full range of faculties. He tried to stand and Ratchet commed Rodimus an alert ping without waiting to see what kind of turn events would take.</p><p>“Starscream, don’t, you can’t--”</p><p>“Can’t <em> what</em>?” he cut the medic off, getting to his feet. “Leave? Who’s going to stop me? You? <b>Ha</b>! Call your inept command staff to throw me in the brig or get out of my way, <em> Hatchet, </em> or so help me--”</p><p>“So help <em> you</em>?” Ratchet fired back, temper rising. “The only mechanism on this whole <em> ship </em> trying to help you is Drift, and you told him to frag off!”</p><p>“Because he <em> can’t </em> help me!” Starscream screeched, servos balled into fists. “Don’t you <em> get </em> it?!”</p><p>“No, I don’t!” They were both yelling now, and their voices carried to every corner of the medbay and out through the shut medbay doors. Ratchet was painfully aware of First Aid and Velocity just a few yards away--he could feel their optics on the back of his helm--but he was helpless against the anger Starscream was dragging out of him. The Seeker’s rage was infectious; he was incapable of helping himself. Sensible thought protocols deleted themselves and in their place downloaded a thousand datapacks of <em> Primus-Fucking-Dammit-Starscream. </em>“That’s why I need you to tell me!”</p><p>“You want the truth?” Starscream shrugged, smirked, and flared the wings at his back. The wind they kicked up rattled every tool and table that surrounded them, and in the single second Ratchet looked away to watch his instruments clatter to the ground, Starscream grabbed him by the wrist.</p><p>Velocity and First Aid rushed across the medbay, ready and willing to intervene. Ratchet held his free hand up to stop them before they got too close; they froze a few feet away, optics wide in concern. Starscream didn’t even turn to look at them.</p><p>Ratchet’s joint creaked in the Seeker’s grip. He didn’t flinch.</p><p>“Yes,” he said to Starscream, vocalizer carefully back under control. Not that it mattered at that range, they were practically interlocked--Ratchet’s EM field, tightly reined in or not, was unmistakably stressed. Still, he was being reckless. This would never end <em> civilly </em> if he let the jet rile him up again.</p><p>
  <em> Easier said than done.  </em>
</p><p>Starscream’s field was shamelessly turbulent, clearly past the point of caring about pride or appearance. It slammed into Ratchet unchecked, lashing out as violently as Starscream did himself. His faceplate, eerily, was perfectly calm. There was something in his optics though, something neither hate nor apathy, and Ratchet realized with a sickening jolt that he <em> recognized </em> it.</p><p>Defeat.</p><p>“Primus,” Ratchet murmured, looking hard at what he saw staring cold and empty back at him. He swore he felt his spark drop into his fuel tank. “I can’t believe it. You really actually <em> love </em> him, don’t you?”</p><p>The sound of fast approaching footsteps came echoing from down the corridor. Starscream glanced at where he was crushing the medic’s wrist; he let go abruptly and all but threw Ratchet’s hand back in his own face. He started heading for the exit, apparently intending to meet whatever fate awaited him on the other side halfway.</p><p>“So what if I do?” Starscream asked as he passed Ratchet by. “Who cares. He used to be mine and now he’s yours. You win, congrats, <em> bravo</em>! Now be sporting about it and let me enjoy my worthless, unrequited consolation prize in peace.”</p><p>The medbay doors slid open just as Starscream reached them, admitting Rodimus and Ultra Magnus. The absence of any kind of stasis cuffs or restraints was conspicuous, and Starscream picked up on it the same time Ratchet did.</p><p>“Expulsion, then?” Starscream said expectantly. “That’s a tad of an overreaction, but… very well.”</p><p>“Wait, hold on just a klik,” Ratchet started, pushing past his patient, pointedly ignoring the way Starscream bristled. “Seriously? For a <em> bar fight</em>? Rodimus, you of all people--after some of the things we’ve done? That <em> you’ve </em> done?” The memory of expelling Drift to cover for Rodimus’ mistakes still incensed him to recall, and that their Captain would even <em> consider </em> doing something like that again, for so small a transgression, had Ratchet right back to being pissed off. </p><p>Beside him, Starscream snorted in disbelief. “What happened to your callous disregard from a cycle ago? Something about me dying a slow death in prison, you said?”</p><p>“Aren’t you supposed to be more self-preserving than this?” Ratchet snapped. “Do you <em> want </em> to die?”</p><p>“I don’t know, will the guilt eat you alive for what’s left of your decrepit life?” Starscream bit back. “Because if it does it might be worth it! Pit, I’ll give you full credit in my <em> suicide note</em>!”</p><p>“Oh, you absolute <em> glitch</em>, I--”</p><p>A massive white servo sliced down between them, cutting off Ratchet’s tirade mid-sentence. The medic and the Seeker looked from the other to Ultra Magnus, and finally to Rodimus, hands raised peacefully without any sort of intent. The ex-Prime looked exhausted, but also like he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.</p><p>“Hey, whoa, slow your collective rolls,” the speedster said. “Let’s back this up.” He made a rewinding motion with his pointer fingers. “So, okay, wow, I just gotta say, the way you two jump to conclusions is an art form. Seriously. Nobody is getting kicked out, so let’s all just chill, huh?” Rodimus patted Magnus’ hip and the enforcer drew back his wall of a hand to cross his arms.</p><p>Starscream raised a brow. “Then why no cuffs? Not even Autobots are <em> that </em> soft.”</p><p>“True, very true!” Rodimus nodded. “Don’t get it twisted, you and Whirl are totally getting punished, full stop. You’re just getting punished slightly less, ‘cause according to the footage from Swerve’s, he swung first. In fact, the only thing you’re actually in trouble for is--frag, how did you put it, Mags?”</p><p>“In order of the severity of the charges: disturbing the peace, destruction of property, and reckless endangerment, Captain.”</p><p>Rodimus clapped his servos together. “Right, all’a that, thanks Mags.”</p><p>The tension swiftly melted out of Ratchet’s cables. He chose not to examine why. “You could have led with that, you know.”</p><p>“You didn’t give me the chance!”</p><p>“What <em> is </em> my punishment?” Starscream interrupted. He’d slapped a placid expression back on his face, but Ratchet could see the way his wings trembled. He drew no attention to it, knowing with a disturbingly heavy spark it had nothing to do with his impending discipline. </p><p>He couldn’t stop thinking about Drift’s confession, and in turn that had him thinking about Rewind’s footage from the duplicate <em> Lost Light</em>--about the unspeakably horrific death Drift had suffered trying to protect him from the DJD. <em> I thought I was lucky in staying below their radar, or too many high priority targets kept me unimportant enough to ignore, but no, it was him, </em> Drift had said. <em> Doing anything and everything Megatron asked, just to buy me a little more time.  </em></p><p>Anything and everything.</p><p>Millions of years of untreated damage hidden under Starscream’s armor.</p><p>Diagnostic readouts painting a picture of chronic agony.</p><p>Rodimus’ voice carried on in the background of Ratchet’s audial suite, explaining that Starscream would be required to spend a few nights in the brig max, that they were going to escort him there personally and they were foregoing cuffs as a sign of good faith. Starscream made some acidic noises of complaint but didn’t resist as he was led out by Ultra Magnus.</p><p>Rodimus was still talking. Ratchet wasn’t listening.</p><p><em> What did it take? </em> He wondered, watching Starscream go. <em> What price did Megatron ask you to pay for Drift’s life? </em>He thought of how Megatron had held the Seeker and how Drift had looked a nanosecond from murdering him the entire time; how gently Starscream had touched the brutal scar on his shoulder and smiled.</p><p>Whatever Starscream had traded for Deadlock he’d never recovered from. Ratchet could only guess at what someone like Megatron would conceive as a fair exchange to stave off the DJD’s appetite for destruction. Could only guess what Starscream risked in coming back within Megatron’s reach. </p><p>There was one thing Ratchet had the sneaking suspicion he didn’t have to guess at--but there was only one way to be certain.</p><p>He needed to call Drift.</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>starscream, on his way to the brig: so do ya'll do conjugal visits or nah? ;)</p><p>magnus: i will literally pay you to shut up</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Asunder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This is all that is left of ME.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If this chapter were a video game it would have come with three optional beginnings and four alternate endings. I re-wrote it, beginning to end, three times. I also planned and tested out all four endings before I finally settled on this one, though I have plans to incorporate all the unused material into future entries of this series.</p><p>That's right, series! I decided I'd rather continue the story that way with definite, finite portions instead of leaving the fic "incomplete" while I post sporadically. </p><p>If this last part is all over the place, my bad--stuff got a little difficult at home, but I really wanted to finish this. Hopefully you all enjoy regardless, and I'll see you in part two!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three cycles.</p><p>The totality of Starscream’s sentence for brawling Whirl, tearing up Swerve’s bar, and breaking the hab-suite level energon dispenser--Magnus <em> had </em> been informed about it, apparently--was only three cycles.</p><p>It was a laughably short sentence. Starscream was reasonably certain he’d had <em> torture sessions </em> longer than that. The Autobots even had the good sense to house him and Whirl at opposite ends of the brig, thus avoiding any further escalation and sparing him the 'copter's non-stop belligerent ranting. The most Starscream picked up from Whirl’s end their whole incarceration were a few echoing <em> bangs </em> against the metal walls and what the Seeker’s audials registered as several demands for a rematch.</p><p>At only a fraction of his probationary period, three cycles was nothing. Starscream passed the days doing much of the same as he used to while waiting for meetings to begin during the war: filling the time with short, uncomfortable defrag cycles on the criminally under-padded prison-style berth, preening what parts of his wings he could reach unaided, and replaying some of his personal favorite flight simulations from his memory banks.</p><p>At no point did he sit with his face in his hands, spark twisting in his chamber, and think about Drift. The cell cameras couldn't prove <em> anything. </em></p><p>Before he knew it his sentence was up, and he was standing a polite distance from the energy grid while Ultra Magnus disengaged it. Enormous white digits punched in a complex series of codes and the glowing pink bars fizzled away to nothing, allowing Starscream to step out and properly stretch his wings for the first time in days. His hangover was long gone and the soreness from surgery faded, though the burn in his array had only worsened--a problem to be dealt with later, back in his hab.</p><p>“All done already?” he asked with a wicked smirk. “And I was just starting to get comfortable.”</p><p>Magnus was unamused. “Your stay can be extended, if you prefer.”</p><p>Starscream sauntered past the enforcer, unhurried, servo over his cockpit in mock-sheepishness. “And further impose upon your generosity? I wouldn’t <em> dream </em> of it.” </p><p>Ultra Magnus looked very badly like he wanted to roll his optics and was held in check only by his unshakable sense of professional decorum. “Of course. This way, please.” He held out his hand, gesturing for Starscream to follow, which he did, though he did so with a raised brow and a wary gait--he didn’t trust this. Where was Magnus trying to take him, and why? Surely he'd paid his debt and was free to go? <em> He better not be expecting me to fill out any paperwork.  </em></p><p>Starscream wanted to get back to his room as soon as possible and he greatly preferred he get there alone and unobserved. Contact with Megatron was unfortunately re-established, and that meant there were some security measures he needed to take, and fast.</p><p>“While I appreciate that chivalry isn’t dead, I know the way back to my own hab-suite just fine,” Starscream soured, falling in behind his jailer.</p><p>“We are not returning to your hab-suite,” Magnus explained, leading Starscream out into the hall and toward one of the far elevators. “Ratchet has requested you in the medbay for a final analysis before you can be returned to duty.”</p><p><em> Ah yes, the rivets. Not going to tighten themselves. </em> Standing purposefully close to Magnus in the elevator--reveling in the way it forced the Autobot against the wall to escape contact with him--Starscream feigned great interest in his claws. “Is his work so shoddy it needs to be double-checked? I was under the impression Ratchet was the best you Autobots ever had to offer--he certainly managed to keep <em> you lot </em> alive the whole godforsaken war--so what in the Pit is the problem now?” He glanced up to meet Magnus’ gaze, expecting some kind of overly detailed explanation like the big blue mech was so infamous for accompanied by a stern disapproving glare, and was mildly surprised when he received neither.</p><p>Magnus just… <em> looked </em> at him. They passed floor after floor, generic background music playing in the background, and Magnus stood there and stared at Starscream with an expression the Seeker couldn’t fathom--until, with a stuttering lurch of his fuel pump, he suddenly did. </p><p>It was one of those looks that strongly implied Magnus knew something Starscream didn’t, something secret and vital being withheld from Starscream specifically. In such severe proximity not even Ultra Magnus could completely erase his EMF; anxiety that had nothing to do with Starscream standing in his space leaked from every seam in the enforcer’s frame. </p><p>Starscream didn’t care for any of that. Not one single fragging bit.</p><p>“Primus, could you <em> be </em> any more obvious?” he asked, finally stepping away. He crossed his arms over his cockpit and sneered up at Magnus, thoroughly unimpressed. “This is why you never would have made it in espionage, you’re too straight-laced to lie with any degree of believability.” </p><p>The elevator slid to a stop with a bright, cheery <em> ding</em>! Magnus made no attempt to exit--he was too busy shuttering his optics at Starscream in blatant confusion, a vast improvement over anxious unease.</p><p>“What?” he blinked. “I... I do not have <em> any </em> idea what you are referring to, Starscream.”</p><p>True to form, the Seeker wasn’t convinced. “Then why are you looking at me like you’re about to apologize for shooting me in the back of the helm the moment I turn around? Because if this is what passes for an assassination attempt these days, I have some notes.”</p><p>“I am not--” Magnus ran a servo over his face. “I am not going to <em> assassinate </em> you.”</p><p>“Sure, that’s what they all say,” Starscream said, waving away the bigger mech. “Do you know how many times I promised Megatron that right before trying to blow his brains out?”</p><p>"Starscream, I'm serious," Ultra Magnus insisted, finally walking out of the elevator. He ignored the jet's scathing optics and kept moving. "Doctor-Patient confidentiality restricts Ratchet from giving me any substantial details on why you need a follow-up exam, but he did make it clear this was something that could not be left unattended."</p><p>Starscream wanted to ask if he was <em> dying </em> or something, since that was about the only reason he could tolerate this whole time wasting charade, when a very dark thought occurred to him--Magnus had looked suspiciously guilty for a mech allegedly ignorant of the Seeker's condition; maybe he <em> was </em> dying. Starscream was self-destructive, sure, but he wasn’t suicidal, and the last thing he needed heaped atop everything else was a slagging <em> diagnosis</em>.</p><p>“Fine,” Starscream conceded, striding reluctantly after the huge blue mech. “But only so I can get back to some modicum of privacy that comes with less obvious prison bars.”</p><p>Magnus didn’t comment on Starscream’s perspective of his <em> Lost Light </em> living arrangement, and Starscream didn’t comment on how many times Magnus glanced at him over his shoulder the rest of the way to the medbay.</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>[<em> Do you want me to come down there? </em> ] Drift asked, sounding like he was already about to drop whatever ridiculous thing he was helping Rodimus with and come racing over anyway, without waiting for an answer. [ <em> I mean it, it’s no trouble at all. </em>]</p><p>Ratchet re-arranged the examination tools on his tray for the tenth time and huffed. [<em> Kid, it’s fine, really. Honestly, do you think he’ll take this any better with you here? I can’t imagine he’s going to be all that pleased about </em> <b> <em>me</em> </b> <em> rooting around inside him, let alone with you of all mechs watching. </em>] A sort of internal flinch carried over their bond, a sign of Drift’s reaction to the imagined outcome in his head, and Ratchet felt the speedster relent.</p><p>[<em> That’s… a good point. Yeah, you’re… you’re right. </em>]</p><p>[<em> I always am. </em>] Ratchet listened to his conjunx snort derisively, then laugh right after, and tried not to think about Starscream's confession or the question he hadn't yet been brave enough to ask.</p><p><em> Do you love him? </em> He’d wondered every time he’d looked at Drift for the last three cycles. Over and over the words fell flat on his tongue and he swallowed them back down; asking Drift for the truth felt like a betrayal. The kid had already told him everything he needed to know, right? <em> Whatever he said, it doesn’t change things, </em> Drift had made clear. <em> You don’t have to worry, I promise. </em> </p><p>Drift didn’t make promises lightly. Drift especially didn’t make promises to <em> him </em> lightly.</p><p>And yet Ratchet worried, and the longer he put off asking the worse the betrayal ate at him, because Drift had sworn his spark to the medic--they were <em> bonded, </em> for Primus’ sake--and he still went cold with a fear he refused to name whenever he thought about the scar in the shape of Deadlock’s teeth lurking beneath Starscream’s plating.</p><p>Ratchet might have met Drift first, but Drift and Starscream had history; a lot of it. <em> Millions of years </em> of it. While he’d been working beside Optimus Prime to keep their cause afloat and their soldiers alive, Drift had risen through the ranks as one of their species’ most celebrated killers, and had, apparently, traded most of that time between the Autobot frontlines and the Decepticon SIC’s bunk. Ratchet had kept everyone at arm’s length and put the needs of the many ahead of his own, and Drift--despite claiming trying to do the exact same--hadn’t turned away intimacy or companionship when it came crawling into his lap, and had gotten to savor having a warm berth with a second frame idling in it for over half the war while Ratchet went to bed cold and alone, and--</p><p><em> Stop, </em> he scolded himself. <em> Now it sounds like you’re blaming him. It’s not his fault you were carrying a unlit torch and he found his fire elsewhere; this isn’t the time to be petty </em> <b> <em>or</em> </b> <em> afraid. So him and Starscream fooled around in the past, and maybe he doesn’t hate his ex as much as </em> <b> <em>you</em> </b> <em> think he should, so what? Drift might have given him a scar, but he gave you his life--questioning his love or his loyalty at this point isn’t just a betrayal, it’s flat out </em> <b> <em>insulting</em></b><em>. </em></p><p>[<em> Ratch? Ratch, you still with me? </em>] Drift’s voice came through his audials, pulling him out of his thoughts.</p><p>Fraggit, he hadn’t been listening, and now he had no idea what he might have missed. [<em> Yeah, I’m here, sorry. Just trying to get everything prepped, Ultra Magnus commed me about a breem ago to say he was en-route. I’m already anticipating resistance, so I don’t want this to drag on any longer than it has to. </em>]</p><p>Drift made an understanding sound that came out partially muffled, and Ratchet could just picture him biting his lip or gnawing at his thumb, something he was guilty of doing while on comms regardless of who he talked to. [<em> Like I said before, he’s not exactly a model patient. Is First Aid or Lotty on shift? Because you might need some help, and I know Aid won’t hesitate to step in, but Lotty is a pacifist. I think. </em>]</p><p>[<em> Velocity is here in the office, First Aid is taking his break, and I’m not about to call him back early just for Screamer. I’ve handled way worse patients with a lot less to lose than one pompous flightframe with a grudge. </em>]</p><p>That got him something approaching an approximation of a laugh, though it sounded much more forced than his first laugh had. There was no flush of amusement through the bond either; Drift was phoning it in, and he wasn’t bothering to hide it. </p><p>[<em> Kid, </em> ] Ratchet started, [ <em> do </em> <b> <em>you</em> </b> <em> want to be here? For-- </em> ] (<em>him</em>) [ <em> --the procedure? </em> ] The <em> why </em> Drift would want to was left carefully unspoken.</p><p>[<em> I… </em> ] Drift’s comm went off, then on again, a digital imitation of his throat working. [ <em> I do, actually. Is that wrong? Is it wrong of me to want that? </em>]</p><p>[<em> No, kid, there ain’t anything wrong with it, </em> ] Ratchet said, hands and spark going heavy. He rested his servos on his instrument tray, palms down and flat against the smooth, cool chrome. [ <em> You two had quite the row together, you’re used to trying to look after him, much as he fights you about it. </em> ] Conflict warred in Ratchet, until a tired smile emerged victorious; jealous as he was of what Drift and Starscream once shared and angry as it made him in the here and now with all the grievances it brought, he couldn’t deny it made him happy to see Drift choose compassion over violence, even where the snide little glitch of a Seeker was concerned. [ <em> I know you were upset you weren’t there when he came out of stasis. </em>]</p><p>And Drift had been mad, honest-to-Primus <em> vexed </em> that he had no choice but to abandon his post outside the medbay doors to attend his own duties in the duty roster. Ratchet remembered getting the anxious comm message in the middle of surgery, a short burst of text laced with frustration and rage not targeted at him requesting Ratchet ping him as soon as Starscream woke up. A request Ratchet had quietly declined, choosing instead to wait to let anyone outside the medical staff know Starscream had come around until the Seeker himself left him no choice, and by then getting ahold of Rodimus and Magnus had been of a higher priority.</p><p>Would Starscream have wanted Drift to be the first thing he saw when his optics opened? Or would he have shredded him into scrap as soon as look at him? Three days ago Ratchet would have bet all the shanix to his name on Starscream going feral the nanosecond Drift so much as breathed in his direction, and then the flighty bastard had turned around and proved him wrong with a single confession, delivered as flippantly as any other meaningless, sparkless aside the jet liked to make, as if he <em> hadn’t </em> just sliced himself open at the waist and spilled his guts for Ratchet and the world to see.</p><p>As if he weren’t a walking testament to devotion, a set of scars concealed beneath a vicious, obnoxious veneer. Starscream was a monster by multiple definitions and the totality of his negative qualities were staggering no matter how you measured them, <em> and </em> he was the most infamous liar in Cybertron’s living memory--Ratchet just hadn’t expected one of his lies to be his capability for self-sacrifice. </p><p>Giving up rule of the planet for the betterment of all Cybertronians had been a grand gesture of humility, and no one in millions of years had predicted the greedy, power-hungry Seeker capable of such a feat. But it had been just that, <em> a </em> feat. A single act of selflessness that shocked their race to its core, because this was <em> Starscream </em> and everyone knew the only thing Starscream cared about was himself. Until a week ago, Ratchet proudly counted himself among them, and after that debacle he was getting dangerously certain the universe was running out of new things to throw at him; he’d been everywhere and seen just about everything, what else could possibly sneak up on him this late in the game?</p><p>No great shock, the answer was Starscream. Starscream, and his oft-refurbished frame, so out of place in the Decepticon ranks for how bright and flashy it was, so <em> tacky </em> and <em> garish </em> and so very good at drawing the optic away from the lingering proof of the thousands of instances of his selflessness; the thousands of bits of evidence that had anyone but Megatron known about would have proven--beyond a shadow of a doubt--that giving up a crown was <em> nothing </em> in comparison, and <em> hardly </em> a surprise.</p><p>The readouts from Starscream’s first exam, unlike the aerial himself, told no lies. Ratchet knew because he’d run them twice just to be sure, then another ten times in case the first two were consecutive errors. All his diagnostic programs were up to date and fully functional though, and each result was the same: 90% irreversible structural damage to the base protoform, localized primarily in his lower body and upper back, with the rest radiating outward in varying severity to nearly every inch of his frame. Other snippets from the examination showed massive nerve circuit degradation, which in most cases would be a mercy--it destroyed sensory nodes, rendering large chunks of the sensornet completely numb--except that Starscream’s hadn’t simply been severed or deactivated, typical of heavily modded or upgraded war frames like he’d been, oh no. </p><p>His nerve circuits were <em> corrupted. </em>Just short of being irreparably fried, they were no longer able to register any sensory data within the protoform except the excruciating. And it wasn’t an accident either, Ratchet recognized a professional job when he saw one; someone extremely talented had artificially altered Starscream’s sensornet and left it an ugly, ravaged, mutilated thing, nothing but a fragged up mess of misfiring signals and dead-end neural highways.</p><p>Lesser mechs would have developed a crippling addiction to pain patches and circuit dampeners eons ago, if they hadn’t deactivated themselves first. Starscream walked like he bathed in hot oil twice a day and didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘clumsy’. Ratchet didn’t know whether to be impressed or mortified.</p><p>He also didn’t know why he gave such a damn, except that he <em> did, </em> and that really did piss him off. Starscream was a manipulative little bastard who had only joined up with their crew to get at his conjunx, and Ratchet knew that ought to infuriate him, and maybe it would have if Drift hadn’t rejected Starscream, and then Starscream had proven them all wrong <em> again </em> and done something decent in actually listening and leaving it at that.</p><p>What was it he’d said? ‘Be sporting about it and let me enjoy my worthless, unrequited consolation prize in peace’? He wasn’t leaving the ship but he was respecting Drift’s choices, and, according to Drift himself, had already told him to frag off on more than one occasion. Drift was the one that wouldn’t let things alone, and Ratchet knew him too well to think he ever fully would.</p><p>Which brought him full circle back to the thing that had been driving him up the walls for the last three cycles all over again.</p><p>[<em> If you want, I can ask him, </em> ] Ratchet offered when no response from Drift was forthcoming. [ <em> I wouldn’t get your hopes up, I’m pretty sure he still wants to claw your optics out, but I can ask. </em>]</p><p>Drift’s sigh crackled across the comm-link. [<em> No, better than you don’t. He told me he doesn’t want--ugh. I’m not thinking clearly, my aura is all over the place--I need to meditate on this. He expects some kind of an answer from me and I don’t have a clue what to tell him. </em>]</p><p>Ratchet started prepping the medical berth--without the padding, this time--locking it into the correct position for the exam. [<em> An answer to what? </em>]</p><p>[<em> About-- </em> ] Drift stopped, resetting his vocalizer. [ <em> About if we could go back to how it was before. He said unless I was willing to give him that, to stay away from him and out of his life, which is… understandable. He came here looking for something that doesn't exist anymore and now he’s stuck; he can’t ever go back to Cybertron and none of the colony worlds want anything to do with him. He gambled on if he’d even make it onboard, gambling on if he had any kind of future at all, with </em> <b> <em>me</em></b><em>, and, well… </em>] A helpless shrug was heavily implied.</p><p>[<em> There’s always Earth, </em> ] Ratchet offered, still unwilling to broach the topic of where Drift’s complex feelings lie. [ <em> His two idiots are both there, aren’t they? </em>]</p><p>[<em> So I’ve heard, but I get the impression they aren’t really on speaking terms anymore. I could bring it up to Rodimus to put a call through, though I-- </em>]</p><p>The medbay doors opened behind Ratchet with a sharp pneumatic hiss, loud enough to cut off whatever Drift was about to say. Starscream sauntered in, perpetually smug, indicating he truly didn’t have a clue why he was there, with Ultra Magnus close behind.</p><p>[<em> He’s here. I’ll call you back after, okay kid? </em>]</p><p>Drift sounded exhausted when he replied. [<em> Sure Ratch, and good luck. Don’t let him wreck anymore of your equipment. </em>]</p><p>The line clicked off and Ratchet turned to face the new admittees. “Magnus, thanks for bringing him in. Didn’t put you too far behind schedule, did I?”</p><p>Magnus looked relieved to see him, likely because it meant his obligation was at its end and he could get far away from Starscream and his acerbic EM field again. “It was no trouble, Ratchet.”</p><p>“Liar,” Starscream muttered. They both ignored him.</p><p>“I’ll let you get back to it then. Judging by what Drift told me, Rodimus dumped all his reports on your desk to go ‘oversee matters of the utmost importance’, so they’re either racing around the lower levels or he’s convinced Drift to try teaching him sword fighting again.”</p><p>“That fails to surprise me, but I welcome the distraction.” His optics flickered to Starscream significantly, then back to Ratchet. “Comm me if you require assistance.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah.” He waited for the enforcer to go, yet Ultra Magnus hesitated, sparing another look at Starscream, as if waiting for him to launch himself at the medic the nanosecond he looked away. Ratchet rolled his optics and started ushering Magnus out, grumbling, “For frag’s sake, he’s had six million years and then some to kill me, if he was going to murder me he would have done it by now. <em> Goodbye, </em> Magnus.”</p><p>The doors slid shut before he could retort, leaving them alone in the empty entryway. Awkwardness was a planted seed ready to grow; Ratchet gave it no time to sprout. “This way,” he said, directing Starscream toward the more private examination rooms in the back. Starscream didn’t budge an inch.</p><p>“Why am I here?” he demanded, then didn’t wait for a reply. “Am I dying? Did you screw up my repairs? <em> Sabotage </em> my repairs? Planning to euthanize me and forge my death certificate to say it was ‘natural causes’? Whatever it is do it fast, I’ve got places to be.” His wings hiked up in challenge and he stood with hands on hips, talons out.</p><p>Ratchet rolled his optics again. “What I said to Magnus, about you? The same goes for me. If I wanted you offline Starscream, you’d be dead. Now come on, you’re not the only mech on this ship with things to do this cycle.”</p><p>Starscream stayed where he was, as if welded to the spot. “No. I’m not going <em> anywhere </em> until you tell me what this is about. Magnus seemed to imply this was an urgent matter, but if that’s the case, why wasn’t I told while I was rotting in the brig for three cycles? Hm? How urgent could it <em> possibly </em> be, if you waited until now to inform me of <em> my own condition</em>?”</p><p>“It’s not a condition,” Ratchet groused, copying Starscream’s pose out of mutual impatience. “It’s a mild infection, that’s all. The only danger is in leaving it untreated, but three cycles is a negligible risk; and besides, you were a scientist, you know energon samples take a long time to process. You’re lucky we got them sorted as soon as we did.”</p><p>Starscream made some choice comments about inferior technology and the inferior doctors using it under his vents, which Ratchet also elected to ignore--he’d baited the hook acknowledging the Seeker’s background, and it spoke to Starscream’s desperate need to be seen as an intellectual that he bit right away.</p><p>“Fine then,” he said, finally making his way past the medbay’s makeshift lobby. “I suppose I have little choice. No doubt I’d be forced to accept treatment even if I refused, for ‘my own good’.”</p><p>Ratchet didn’t often wish Cybertronians were capable of being strangled to death, but Starscream was getting him there. “I know you’re not going to believe me--”</p><p>“You’re right, I won’t.”</p><p>“--but no one here is going to <em> force </em> you to get help. We’ll keep offering it and hope you’re smart enough to take it, but barring life or death circumstances? It’s your problem, not ours. So,” he went on, gesturing again towards the private exam area, “are you smart enough to be <em> my </em> problem, or do you want to find out what recycling a corrosive polymorphic viral-nanite through your fuel pump feels like?”</p><p>It was an extreme example that did the job well--Starscream’s upper lip peeled off his dentae in disgust and he conceded, walking just a mite faster. “Alright, <em> alright, </em> save it for the Academy, let’s get this over with.”</p><p>Ratchet harbored the exact same sentiment. Nothing about this was going to be pleasant; better it be done as smoothly and quickly as possible, which all but guaranteed Starscream would do everything in his power to prevent that. Considering what Ratchet had learned between their first conversation and now, this was perhaps the one time he wouldn’t blame him for… <em> overreacting. </em> </p><p>Guiding Starscream to the far end of the medbay, Ratchet drew back the privacy curtain separating the intended berth from the rest of the room. Starscream came around the corner of it, still acting put-upon to hide the subtle wariness pervading his field, and he opened his mouth to say something else sharp only to freeze, jaw hanging, when the berth came into view.</p><p>Almost fully reclined, the stirrups at the foot of it jutted high and wide, intended purpose impossible to misinterpret. Starscream’s vents hitched, servos clenched into tight fists at his sides, while the rest of him remained still as stone.</p><p>“That is not a cleansing apparatus,” he said, and Ratchet hadn’t known his vocoder could dial down so low. It was worse, somehow, than the expected screech.</p><p><em> Here’s where it gets difficult. </em> Ratchet’s bed-side manner had never been called <em> delicate, </em> but this wasn’t a situation that could be strong-armed. Based on what Drift had told him and what the medic could ascertain on his own, this could turn ugly <em> fast</em>--a very light touch was called for, for both their sakes.</p><p>Once again, Ratchet chose not to overthink why he was so concerned for Starscream beyond how his protocols were programmed to function, and shut down any further extrapolation on the subject before it could start. “The infection is stemming from a significant, unhealed tear in your valve lining,” he informed the aerial instead, keeping his tone appropriately clinical. “Flushing the virus from your systems is a temporary solution--if the hole in your equipment isn’t repaired, infection will just set in again.”</p><p>He waited for a response; Starscream only continued to stand immobile while the air surrounding them got heavier and heavier.</p><p>Ratchet cleared his vocal suite and tried, “The damage registers as roughly an orn old. My diagnostics caught it while we were doing a full sweep of your internals prior to surgery.” It was a simple fix, one Ratchet could have done the same time as all the rest of Starscream’s repairs, and it wouldn't have taken but half an hour or so to patch.</p><p>But that would have meant opening the Seeker's panels without his say, in front of Aid and Lotty; both a grievous breach of ethics and an exposure Starscream very well might have risked actual expulsion for when he woke up, realized what had been done to him, and attempted to relieve Ratchet of all his most vital organs. If the chill permeating his field and the stony silence weren’t indicative enough, Starscream’s gaze, fixed solely on the berth’s apparatuses, made clear <em> exactly </em> where his feelings on anything being near his panel lie.</p><p>Starscream’s hands began to shake.</p><p><em> He’s going to reject treatment, </em> Ratchet thought. It would serve only to compound his misery and complicate matters further when his health took an inevitable nosedive, and Starscream would probably accept those consequences--and any others that arose--all to avoid the humiliation of being vulnerable in front of Ratchet, the mech he saw as responsible for stealing Drift away. </p><p>Ratchet cycled a vent and drew up Starscream’s report to the front of his HUD.</p><p>The rip in his valve, most definitely a souvenir of the depressive spiral that landed him in Overtake’s berth cycles ago, spanned one entire side of Starscream’s inner mesh and stretched from lip to ceiling node; it was a painful wound to bear and Starscream’s self-repair had done nothing to heal it. Irregular recharge and sporadic refueling did his self-repair systems no favors--even three rotations in the brig free from manual labor and bar brawls hadn’t made a dent. It wasn’t the kind of injury most mechs could swagger about with looking unflappable; Starscream’s equipment might be new but wounds like this clearly weren’t, and he bore it with a smooth, masterful gait.</p><p>Truth be told, if Ratchet hadn’t already known about it, he wouldn’t have ever in a million years guessed. It spoke volumes the medic had no inclination to read, since he got a better and better picture of <em> why </em> with every passing day.</p><p>“Starscream,” Ratchet said, taking half a step closer. “I told you, I can’t force any course of treatment on you. I wouldn’t even if I could. I’ll flush your lines if that’s all you’ll consent to and we can leave it at that, but you’d only be right back in here in a few orns time to repeat the process all over again.” </p><p>Still nothing. The Seeker had been quieter longer than Ratchet thought possible outside of stasis or death, and with someone like Starscream that rang as… astronomically bad. His spark demanded he bridge the gap between them, make some kind of contact, offer a healing hand, but instinct was louder in reminding him this was <em> Starscream </em> and they hated each other's' <em> guts </em>and wherever the Seeker had retreated to in his helm he’d probably come out of it aiming to decapitate the first thing to touch him.</p><p><em> Never was much of a model patient, </em>Drift’s vocal file echoed.</p><p>Ratchet was an old hand at this after millenia of war--he knew trauma when he saw it. </p><p>So he moved slow. He got the rest of the way in front of Starscream, telegraphing his movements as he went, and <em> carefully </em> broke the Seeker’s line of sight with the medical berth.</p><p>Glossy optic’d, Starscream’s jaw was set so tightly his neck cables visibly strained. He looked like a petro-rabbit ready to bolt.</p><p>“Starscream,” he said again, louder. “Starscream!” He worried his lip for a moment, weighing his options and calculating risks, before finally giving in and saying, “Do you want me to call Drift?”</p><p>The effect was instantaneous. Ruby optics flashed and Starscream in-vented sharply, as if he’d forgotten he could. For a nanoklik his eyes went wide, searching wildly--Ratchet heard his targeting systems hum to life--before finding the medic and shuttering frantically. A second later and Starscream schooled his expression into indifference, as if the last few kliks hadn’t happened at all, and his targeting systems slowly cycled off again.</p><p>Ratchet gave him a few nanoseconds to process. Like coming out of an extended lag, Starscream came back into motion all at once, wings flicking and arms crossing, and he started to back away from Ratchet before changing his mind, likely overthinking how every action might be interpreted after his sudden lapse.</p><p>“How long will it take?” he asked, EM field sharp against Ratchet’s. His servos gripped his biceps hard enough to make the plating there creak.</p><p>“Starscream--”</p><p>“How<em> long</em>?” he asked again, fangs bared. </p><p>Ratchet sighed and held his hands up in surrender, forcing his faceplate into a look of annoyance. He guessed Starscream--like most Decepticons he’d treated--would respond better if angry instead of afraid, and he was right. “If you stop yapping I can flush and patch in less than an hour and we can <em> both </em> get back to avoiding each other like Cybonic plague. Fast enough for you?”</p><p>Starscream glared, but didn’t argue. His hands peeled away from his arms leaving incriminating flecks of sky blue behind, and he stalked to the medical berth. Ratchet triple-checked his tools while Starscream settled, all while looking like he was trying to recline on a bed of nails.</p><p>Ratchet sat on his wheeled examination stool, pulled his tray close, and slid in between the stirrups.</p><p>
  <em> Steady on, mech. Nothing but a patch job, you’ve done thousands. Could do it in your sleep. Ignore that it’s Screamer or that Drift used to be in the exact place you are now, and with any luck you’ll both come out of this no more traumatized than you went in. </em>
</p><p> “Okay then. We’ll do the patch first.” Ratchet slapped at one of the foot rests next to his head. “C’mon, pedes up.”</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p> </p><p>He hated this. He <em> hated </em> it.</p><p>Starscream crossed his arms over his cockpit knowing it would hide his face from view at Ratchet’s current angle and proceeded to bite his lip until it bled.</p><p>“I’m going to deactivate the relevant pain sensors,” the medic told him predictably, because that’s what all medics said the first time they worked on Starscream while he was online to say it to. He stared at the ceiling with unseeing optics, hands gripping his arms too tight, and waited for the inevitable.</p><p>Scuffed servos found the secondary medical port in his side with practiced ease, popping it open and jacking a diagnostic cable in smoothly. The connection sent a faint <em> zap </em> racing through the surrounding circuits, followed by the expected lowering of his protective firewalls as Ratchet’s medic coding ran up against his own. If Starscream cared to he could turn his focus inward and track its progress, but that was pointless. He already knew what was going to happen.</p><p><em> I could warn him, </em> Starscream thought. There was still time, if he stopped him now. He didn’t do that either though, hoping maybe the Autobot recoiling in horrified disgust would be worth a laugh, and Starscream could really use one about now. <em> If he recoils at all. He’s the Hatchet, he’s probably </em> <b> <em>inflicted</em> </b> <em> these exact procedures.  </em></p><p>So he kept quiet, and a nanosecond later Ratchet ran headfirst into the great big gaping <em> nothing </em>where Starscream’s sensornet controls ought to have been, and weren’t.</p><p>“<em>What </em> in Primus’ name?” <em> There it is. </em></p><p>“Oh, did I forget to mention?” Starscream laughed, no longer bothering to hide his contempt. He kept an iron grasp on his field but couldn’t keep the bitterness from his vocoder. “No pain protocols! Had them expunged <em> eons </em> ago. Disobeyed orders by activating them out of turn one too many times, you understand.” </p><p>They’d taken control of his neuralnet from him--bolted him to a chair and stole it right out his skull while he shrieked, so loud and so long his vocalizer <em> melted </em>and the only sounds he'd made for days after were ugly gurgles and whines--and in return they gave him something so much worse. Something Starscream had wanted to go to the Well without another spark (save, perhaps, Drift) ever discovering, but he wanted the burning, tank-wrenching pain inside his valve to stop so much more.</p><p>“There’s no way to deactivate them?” Ratchet asked. Starscream kept his optics on the ceiling, fighting the urge to close his legs, and vented impatiently.</p><p>“Short of stasis, no,” he hissed. “And don’t even think about asking, I’m not going offline with you <em> inside me.</em>” </p><p>Ratchet made a small sound between dismissal and understanding, quickly overshadowed by the metallic clinking of a tool being selected off a tray. Something brushed Starscream’s inner thigh plating and he jerked away on reflex, even though he’d known the touch was coming.</p><p>“Easy,” came the medic’s placating tone, disgustingly <em> soft </em> and <em> sappy </em> like Starscream were some sort of <em> victim </em> in need of gentle handling and <em> pity. </em>A warm servo came to rest on the Seeker’s knee;  he chose to see it as cautionary instead of conciliatory. “I’m going to start now,” Ratchet warned, and that warm hand moved quickly to the edge of Starscream’s equipment and triggered the manual release. He could have used the code command through their link-up; Starscream wondered if Ratchet was opting for the physical route to acclimate him, or if he simply didn’t want to put his processor back into the terrible void of Starscream’s coding.</p><p>His interface panel retracted, folding prettily aside just as it was meant to. Cold medbay air hit his exposed valve and he repressed the instinctual drive to shudder at the chill as well as the unwelcome touch of warm servos pressed around it. The feeling of hands so close to his equipment--medic hands, untrustworthy hands, hands that weren’t <em> Deadlock’s </em> hands--had Starscream wanting to fling himself off the berth, claws first. He kept his servos wrapped around his arms a shade too tight for his dermal plating’s liking and tore at the soft metal of his lip plates with his teeth to keep the taste of energon on his tongue, and focused all his energy on steadying his vents and spark. There was a hardline currently transmitting all his vitals directly into Ratchet’s processor, he’d never live it down if the slagging antique knew just how close he was to losing it.</p><p><em> Just a patch. It’s just a patch. </em> That’s all it was, just a textbook mesh repair, it was that and <em> only </em> that, and he'd agreed to it and it wasn’t at all a violation or a removal or an <em> addition, </em> nothing of the sort. It would be over soon enough, he’d get his lines cleaned, and then he’d tear his hab-suite apart for circuits and cables and an energy source until it was as deadly and fortified as his office on Cybertron had been, and then maybe, <em> finally, </em> he could turn off his paranoia-ridden module outside of medically induced stasis for longer than fifteen minutes and get some real, actual <em> sleep </em> because Primus below he was so <em> fragging tired.  </em></p><p>Between his legs Ratchet got to work. </p><p>Whether out of professional skill or due courtesy, his touch was light. Everything he did was done with the precision one came to expect of the mech oft credited as the greatest doctor of the last three generations. His techniques were far from painless, though Starscream could hardly lay the blame for that at Ratchet’s stabilizers when his neuralnet was as thoroughly putrefied as it was. Any other day, any other procedure, Starscream would gladly have bit the Autobot’s head off over it, raised all kinds of Pit just to make sure his attending physician was as miserable as he was and then complained until he was thrown out just to be rid of him. But, loath as Starscream was to admit it, this was the easiest to bear treatment he’d had since before the war began, and he wasn’t in the mood to fight.</p><p>Not with Ratchet, not over this. He was teetering on the brink of panic, keeping hold of his icy cold exterior by a thread, and <em> so what </em> if the rustbucket’s consideration for his well-being, in any capacity, was keeping him grounded enough not to flinch out of the stirrups each time a digit swept a clinical line up his raw, ripped up internals? <em> So what </em> if a few crumbs of begrudgingly given kindness were enough to stay his rage <em> and </em> his fear, and keep him in his seat while he had no choice but to feel every step of the process of having a leaking gash deep inside himself be weaved back together again?</p><p>Didn’t matter. Didn’t mean anything. Didn’t stall his spark or choke his vents either when, half a joor later, Ratchet’s fingers extracted themselves delicately from his freshly patched valve and placed their wet, sticky weight <em> around it, </em> to the place where dark grey protoform met red plating, and pressed experimentally at what Starscream had known they’d find there, and dared anyway to hope <em> Ratchet </em> of all mecha wouldn’t see.</p><p>“Starscream,” Ratchet started, fingertips testing the texture of something old at the edge of the Seeker’s equipment, right near the installation points, “what are these scars?”</p><p>He should have lied. Why didn’t he lie? He should have done what he’d <em> always </em> done, and lied and lied and <em> lied </em> until not even he knew the truth of it anymore. Wasn’t this humiliation enough? Lying was safe and easy and it was no one’s right to know but <em> his </em> and he <em> hated this </em> and maybe the isolation and rejection really were beginning to get to him because this was Ratchet--whom he despised, whom he <em> envied</em>--and for some sad insane reason he opened his traitorous intake and he told him, optics burning a hole through the ceiling as he spoke.</p><p>“I’m surprised you have to ask. A mech of your caliber, I’d have thought you’d know self-inflicted wounds when you saw them.” He raised his arms away from his cockpit for the first time since lying down, waving one razored servo at the medic sitting ramrod straight in front of his naked array. “When Deadlock defected and left the Decepticons behind, he took any reason I had for interfacing with him. I’d been allowing Megatron unfettered access to my equipment for millenia to keep his spike warm and sated and far away from my trine, a duty I pretended to <em> enthusiastically </em> enjoy and bore with patient grace, because I knew I had someone waiting in the wings who would <em> never </em> abuse the privilege.”</p><p>At last Starscream sat up off the berth to look Ratchet in the optic, and his tank capsized at the sight of the Autobot’s poorly concealed distress. The disgust and horror he’d longed to see no longer held any entertainment; it only served to sicken him, as the dawning reality of what Starscream had done so clearly sickened Ratchet.</p><p>“Then he <em> took off </em> and <em> left me </em> and I found myself staring down the barrel of a life spent in Megatron’s berth, forced to keep on pretending I wasn’t <em> forced, </em> and I came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t worth it anymore. My trine hated me by then, why torture myself for nothing? So at the first sign Megatron was looking to <em> enjoy </em> me, I went back to my quarters, barricaded the door, and <em> ripped out my valve</em>.”</p><p>Ratchet slowly pulled his hands out from between Starscream’s thighs. His EM field had ceased to exist. “Without a surgeon or anesthetic,” he said, more to himself than Starscream.</p><p>“Correct,” the ex-’Con snarled. “And in those days my pain coding was intact. Understand, I could have gone to the infirmary, done it there with circuit dampeners and a medic at my disposal. But I could trust no one, I had no time to waste buying silence with threats, and I wasn’t going to risk Megatron catching wind before I’d seen my castration through, and it <em> was </em> a castration. I tore it all out, all of it, every last piece, until there was nothing left between my legs but bloodsoaked cabling and a hollow space. <em> These</em>,” Starscream went on with a sweep of his hand, “are what’s left of a pyrrhic victory. These are what’s left of me deciding that if I didn’t get to enjoy my hardware, <em> no one </em> would.”</p><p>The scars, much like the claimed ring hidden on Starscream’s shoulder, were dull silver. Raised welts, small and ugly, blended passably with the newer welds of a semi-recent pelvic replacement, and set into the seams of his new frame’s components they too formed a shape as unmistakable as the one Deadlock had left with his fanged mouth: five roughly circular scars, four of a similar size on the left seam, one slightly bigger on the right, made in the approximate placement of where five digits would fall if caused by a right hand.</p><p>Starscream remembered the first penetration of his claws buried deep into his protoform. The way he'd offlined his vocalizer <em> after </em> he started, foolishly thinking--after hundreds of beatings taken in stubborn silence--that he could actually contain his cries once he began, only to seize up with a pathetic little shriek the nanosecond he got knuckle deep in his own metal flesh. Then his energon was gushing out <em> everywhere </em> and he panicked. Everything after that was a bit of a blur, blood loss making his memory files hazy, save for a few moments somewhere in the middle where he'd been reduced to furious sobs, kneeling on the floor and frantically tearing out everything from inside his pelvic components he could reach in fistfuls with both hands.</p><p>Those five marks were all the proof that remained. The only evidence of his mutilation, on the outside anyway. The rest were lost to the countless other surgical scars inside his inner mechanisms, well and truly hidden.</p><p>Starscream heard Ratchet ex-vent, slow and controlled. Then the rustle of a polishing cloth, then a clean servo triggering the command to close up his array. Shiny red panels interlocked flawlessly and Ratchet slid his chair back, still scrubbing the piece of fabric into his joints, over and over, without looking up. It was his turn to avoid optics, apparently.</p><p>Something in the air around him, thick and uneasy with questions gone unasked, had Starscream opening his mouth again. </p><p>"You're wondering why I had it reinstalled," he guessed, tugging his pedes from the stirrups. He folded his legs up underneath himself in a motion not even he could deny was defensive and watched as Ratchet, mouth downturned at the corners, reset everything for the second procedure. The diagnostic cable connecting them was left undisturbed, snaking along behind the older mech as he walked. </p><p>"Hard not to," Ratchet admitted. His attention had shifted to the energon filtration unit beside the berth and didn't look as if he was keen on shifting it again any time soon.</p><p>Starscream couldn’t abide that. Not after the slag he’d just put up with. Ratchet wanted to <em> fix him</em>? He wanted Starscream to be <em> his </em> problem? Fine. Starscream would happily oblige him, if just this once. Let someone else get what they asked for for a change.</p><p>“Indeed,” he smirked. “After hearing the lengths I went to, anyone would question my motives for putting it back. Make no mistake, I had no part in being made whole again. In fact I objected to the repairs <em> quite </em> vehemently. Megatron can attest to that.”</p><p>Ratchet held out his hand. Starscream surrendered his arm to him; the sting of two cold needles in his silicon veins was so minuscule a discomfort he almost missed it. </p><p>“Can he now?” the old medic asked, and there was a new emotion in his gravelly vocoder. It sounded a lot like… anger?</p><p><em> On my behalf? </em> The Seeker wanted to laugh. <em> Autobots really are soft-sparked idiots, it seems. </em> </p><p>“Of course,” Starscream scoffed. The filtration machine now attached to him booted to life with a series of monotone chirps, and he felt the sluggish drag of energon being pulled straight from his fuel lines. “Who do you think ordered the deed done?”</p><p>Ratchet’s optics snapped to his, outraged and in disbelief. “He <em> ordered </em> you to have your interfacing equipment reintegrated!?”</p><p>“Perhaps <em> convinced </em> is more accurate.” Starscream’s servo rose to his shoulder, itching to snake beneath the armor and rub at his scar. “The medics were given the orders to have me repaired. <em> I </em> on the other hand was given an ultimatum.”</p><p>Something the jet said sparked recognition behind Ratchet’s optics, and it sent a little bolt of cold down Starscream’s backstrut that left his wings twitching. There was absolutely no way he could already know, no possible way. Only two mecha in the universe did--Starscream had killed the medic responsible for his transplant only a vorn and half after his procedure, with great relish--and <em> he </em> certainly hadn’t blabbed to anyone.</p><p>
  <em> Megatron? Would he--? No. No, he wouldn’t, not when he’s playing so seriously at being reformed. So who…?  </em>
</p><p>It was also possible Drift had tipped him off, during that nightly chat where he went and spilled all sorts of secrets he had no business whatsoever spilling. Starscream himself had confessed to making sacrifices on Deadlock’s behalf, and if Drift had passed that on and Ratchet was half as smart as he liked to think he was, the pieces would fall into place all on their own.</p><p>They came together right in front of Starscream’s eyes. Ratchet’s optics widened the slightest fraction and the dismal slant of his mouth crooked into something as resolute as it was grim.</p><p>“That’s how you kept him off The List. Isn’t it? That’s how you bought his life.”</p><p>A price higher than Starscream ever dreamed he’d be asked to pay. For Deadlock, to prolong the chance he might live to someday return to him, it was a paltry sum.</p><p>“Oh, my dear, dear, doctor,” Starscream laughed, air hissing out of his vents like a whisper. “<em>That </em> did not buy your precious conjunx’s life. Oh no, no. Submitting to eons of spreading my legs for Megatron at his leisure, like a cheap buymech? No, <em> that </em> was only the down payment.”</p><p><em>Do you have any idea what it took? </em>His exact words to Drift. <em>What Megatron <strong>did</strong> to me?!</em></p><p>It had only been the beginning, and it was all Starscream was willing to share. </p><p>Perhaps sensing how far he’d pushed past the Seeker’s good graces Ratchet was merciful for the rest of the flushing treatment. He kept his inquiries strictly on topic, but the tension never left him. Tempered as his field was, Starscream could still feel a simmering dark spilling through the cracks anytime Ratchet came near to check his progress.</p><p>When his treatment was complete Ratchet unhooked him and handed him a sealed cube of medical grade energon, which Starscream accepted but didn't drink. He'd wasted too much time already. It went into his subspace for later. Ratchet’s reproachful expression--infamous for bringing mechanisms like Optimus Prime to heel--fell remarkably flat when tried on the jet.</p><p>“I don’t want to see you in here again for underfueling,” Ratchet said, rightfully suspicious.</p><p>“What a coincidence,” Starscream sighed as he made his departure, “I don’t want to see <em> you </em> at all.”</p><p>He’d thought to sneak in one last little barb, as if that could somehow put him on solid ground again after how thoroughly he’d been shaken, but Ratchet was back to being the epitome of the unfazed medic that had heard and seen it all. Starscream was mildly impressed--he almost bought it.</p><p>“If that’s what it takes,” Ratchet groused. “Recharge and refuel out of spite if you have to, so long as it happens. It’s all the same to me.” He turned to start winding up the tubing for cleaning, Starscream seemingly forgotten. It was a hint the Seeker knew how to take.</p><p>He only made it a few steps before Ratchet spoke again, calling his name.</p><p>“Starscream, wait.”</p><p>“What?” he growled, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m in a <em> hurry</em>!”</p><p>“One more thing: go for a flight. Doctor’s orders.” </p><p>Starscream narrowed his optics. “As if I needed to be <em> told.</em>” </p><p>As if he hadn’t been procrastinating fulfilling his flightframe’s most base desire since arriving. As if he hadn’t been so busy interrupting the lives of everyone around him as a distraction from his own abject misery he’d starved himself out of the possibility of flight once he <em> did </em> want to transform and take off.</p><p>Ratchet, well aware of all of this, said nothing of it. Starscream supposed there wasn’t anything left to say.</p><p>But there was plenty left to do.</p><p>As painless as he’d been the day he first came to the <em> Lost Light, </em> Starscream took off at a brisk pace two strides short of a jog, unencumbered by lingering burns or an aching helm, and made for the habitation block.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>The sight of his door was a source of instant relief. The corridor was empty; there was no one to see him race to it, throw his palms against it and ex-vent, wings sagging low. Never in his life did he think he’d be so happy to see a door again.</p><p>Not that a door by itself had ever saved him in the past, but the concept of something solid that locked was reassuring no matter what it was, provided he was on one side and the thing he was running from was on the other. He stepped back and keyed in his code, fingers a blur, and rushed forward the second the door slid aside.</p><p>He didn’t realize anything was wrong until he’d passed the threshold, and by then it was too late.</p><p>Waiting inside, leaning against the edge of his berth and reading a datapad--as if it were <em> his </em> room, as if he <em> belonged</em>--was Megatron. The sound of the door and thruster heels on durasteel brought his head up, and his optics found Starscream immediately.</p><p>“Starscream,” his former lord and master said. Calm, casual, as if this meeting were a happy accident and not some coordinated effort. He set down the datapad, which was deliberate. If he were done with it, he’d have put it into his subspace. It was a sign of disrespect--Starscream didn’t have his undivided attention, despite being the one Megatron came to see.</p><p>That was the only silver lining Starscream could find. That, and the door behind him was still open.</p><p>Megatron rose to his full height, hands splayed on the slab behind him in deceptive vulnerability. It was a pose that left him open to attack, and he knew it, just like he knew Starscream wasn’t going to make use of it.</p><p><em> I’m not afraid of you, </em> Starscream said, except the words didn’t leave his mouth. <em> Get out, </em> he tried, but that didn’t come out either.</p><p>“We need to talk,” Megatron said. “You’ve been avoiding me.”</p><p>At last a sound burst from the Seeker’s intake--a laugh, so thick and jagged he choked on it. “Avoiding you, oh mighty Megatron? Primus below, no!” Starscream took a step backwards, then another, and he kept taking them until his wings had cleared the doorframe, and that was all the room he needed.</p><p>“No, that was useful coincidence. This, however? <em> This </em> is avoiding you.”</p><p>Starscream threw himself into the hallway, and he ran.</p><p>When he heard the sound of footsteps giving chase he didn’t bother looking over his shoulder--he ignited his thrusters, and he <em> flew. </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As always, you can find me on tumblr @ d0nkarnage</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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